Index-Tracking Portfolio Construction and Rebalancing under Bayesian Sparse Modelling and Uncertainty Quantification

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Roxanas, Dimitrios
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911340129419264
author Roxanas, Dimitrios
author_facet Roxanas, Dimitrios
contents We study the construction and rebalancing of sparse index-tracking portfolios from an operational research perspective, with explicit emphasis on uncertainty quantification and implementability. The decision variables are portfolio weights constrained to sum to one; the aims are to track a reference index closely while controlling the number of names and the turnover induced by rebalancing. We cast index tracking as a high-dimensional linear regression of index returns on constituent returns, and employ a sparsity-inducing Laplace prior on the weights. A single global shrinkage parameter controls the trade-off between tracking error and sparsity, and is calibrated by an empirical-Bayes stochastic approximation scheme. Conditional on this calibration, we approximate the posterior distribution of the portfolio weights using proximal Langevin-type Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms tailored to the budget constraint. This yields posterior uncertainty on tracking error, portfolio composition and prospective rebalancing moves. Building on these posterior samples, we propose rules for rebalancing that gate trades through magnitude-based thresholds and posterior activation probabilities, thereby trading off expected tracking error against turnover and portfolio size. A case study on tracking the S&P~500 index is carried out to showcase how our tools shape the decision process from portfolio construction to rebalancing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_22109
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Index-Tracking Portfolio Construction and Rebalancing under Bayesian Sparse Modelling and Uncertainty Quantification
Roxanas, Dimitrios
Computational Finance
Optimization and Control
Portfolio Management
Applications
Computation
91G10, 62P05, 9008, 91B06, 90C25
We study the construction and rebalancing of sparse index-tracking portfolios from an operational research perspective, with explicit emphasis on uncertainty quantification and implementability. The decision variables are portfolio weights constrained to sum to one; the aims are to track a reference index closely while controlling the number of names and the turnover induced by rebalancing. We cast index tracking as a high-dimensional linear regression of index returns on constituent returns, and employ a sparsity-inducing Laplace prior on the weights. A single global shrinkage parameter controls the trade-off between tracking error and sparsity, and is calibrated by an empirical-Bayes stochastic approximation scheme. Conditional on this calibration, we approximate the posterior distribution of the portfolio weights using proximal Langevin-type Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms tailored to the budget constraint. This yields posterior uncertainty on tracking error, portfolio composition and prospective rebalancing moves. Building on these posterior samples, we propose rules for rebalancing that gate trades through magnitude-based thresholds and posterior activation probabilities, thereby trading off expected tracking error against turnover and portfolio size. A case study on tracking the S&P~500 index is carried out to showcase how our tools shape the decision process from portfolio construction to rebalancing.
title Index-Tracking Portfolio Construction and Rebalancing under Bayesian Sparse Modelling and Uncertainty Quantification
topic Computational Finance
Optimization and Control
Portfolio Management
Applications
Computation
91G10, 62P05, 9008, 91B06, 90C25
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22109