Construction, Management, and Performance of Sparse Markowitz Portfolios
26 Pages
Posted: 14 Oct 2012
Last revised: 18 Sep 2014
Tea-Cegos Deployment
Universität Sankt Gallen; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Date Written: October 14, 2012
Abstract
We study different implementations of the sparse portfolio construction and rebalancing method introduced by Brodie et al. This technique is based on the use of a l1-norm (sum of the absolute values) type penalization on the portfolio weights vector that regularizes the Markowitz portfolio selection problem by automatically eliminating the dynamical redundancies present in the time evolution of asset prices. We make specific recommendations as to the different estimation techniques for the parameters needed in the use of the method and we prove its good performance in realistic situations involving different rebalancing frequencies and transaction costs. Our empirical findings show that the beneficial effects of the use of sparsity constraints are robust with respect to the choice of trend and covariance estimation methods used in its implementation.
Keywords: Markowitz portfolios, penalized regression, portfolio selection, portfolio management, sparsity, Sharpe ratio
JEL Classification: C5
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
Henriques, Julie and Ortega, Juan-Pablo, Construction, Management, and Performance of Sparse Markowitz Portfolios (October 14, 2012). Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, 18(4), 383-402, 2014. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2161564 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2161564
