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Sparse Asymptotic PCA: Identifying Sparse Latent Factors Across Time Horizon in High-Dimensional Time Series

Zhaoxing Gao

arXiv 13 Jul 2024 · Statistics — Methodology

arXiv:2407.09738 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel sparse latent factor modeling framework using sparse asymptotic Principal Component Analysis (APCA) to analyze the co-movements of high-dimensional panel data over time. Unlike existing methods based on sparse PCA, which assume sparsity in the loading matrices, our approach posits sparsity in the factor processes while allowing non-sparse loadings. This is motivated by the fact that financial returns typically exhibit universal and non-sparse exposure to market factors. Unlike the commonly used $\ell_1$-relaxation in sparse PCA, the proposed sparse APCA employs a truncated power method to estimate the leading sparse factor and a sequential deflation method for multi-factor cases under $\ell_0$-constraints. Furthermore, we develop a data-driven approach to identify the sparsity of risk factors over the time horizon using a novel cross-sectional cross-validation method. We establish the consistency of our estimators under mild conditions as both the dimension $N$ and the sample size $T$ grow. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the proposed method performs well in finite samples. Empirically, we apply our method to daily S&P 500 stock returns (2004--2016) and identify nine risk factors influencing the stock market.

Citation extraction

57
references
138
in-text mentions
57
distinct cited
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self-citations
13,624
main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_titled_section at “Supplementary Material” · 47% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Connor and Korajczyk (1986) Performance measurement with the arbitrage pricing theory: A new framework for analysis1.00063100%
2Connor and Korajczyk (1988) Risk and return in an equilibrium APT: Application of a new test methodology1.00063100%
3Kristensen (2017) Diffusion indexes with sparse loadings1.00063100%
4Bai and Ng (2013) Principal components estimation and identification of static factors0.9285380%
5Bai and Ng (2002) Determining the number of factors in approximate factor models0.89911573%
6Johnstone and Lu (2009) On consistency and sparsity for principal components analysis in high dimensions0.87472100%
7Ma (2013) Sparse principal component analysis and iterative thresholding0.87462100%
8Pelger (2020) Understanding Systematic Risk: A High-Frequency Approach0.87452100%
9Gao and Tsay (2023) Divide-and-conquer: a distributed hierarchical factor approach to modeling large-scale time series data0.84333100%
10Witten et al (2009) A penalized matrix decomposition, with applications to sparse principal components and canonical correlation analysis0.81142100%

Showing the top 10 of 57 scored citations.