Yau's Affine-Normal Descent for Large-Scale Unrestricted Higher-Moment Portfolio Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Wang, Ya-Juan, Niu, Yi-Shuai, Sheshmani, Artan, Yau, Shing-Tung
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Wang, Ya-Juan
Niu, Yi-Shuai
Sheshmani, Artan
Yau, Shing-Tung
author_facet Wang, Ya-Juan
Niu, Yi-Shuai
Sheshmani, Artan
Yau, Shing-Tung
contents Unrestricted mean-variance-skewness-kurtosis portfolio optimization can capture asymmetry and tail risk, but sample-moment formulations become computationally impractical when the asset universe is large: they produce dense nonconvex quartic objectives with prohibitive coskewness and cokurtosis tensors and anisotropic, ill-conditioned level sets. We develop a structure-exploiting algorithm based on Yau's affine-normal descent that follows affine-normal directions of the current level set while working directly with the return matrix. The method avoids explicit higher-order tensors and exploits the quartic structure for exact sample oracles, derivative evaluation, and exact line search. We also provide theory for the reduced simplex formulation, including regularity and convexity conditions that separate data-map geometry from investor preference coefficients. Computational results show a clear implementation split: a direct configuration is effective on the standard small benchmark, whereas a preconditioned conjugate-gradient configuration with stall recovery becomes the preferred large-scale implementation by the upper end of the hundreds and remains competitive as the asset universe moves into the thousands. On a 5-minute A-share panel with 5,440 stocks, the method makes direct full-universe comparisons with exact mean-variance portfolios feasible and shows on the baseline split that the incremental value of higher moments is strongest at moderate return targets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_25378
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Yau's Affine-Normal Descent for Large-Scale Unrestricted Higher-Moment Portfolio Optimization
Wang, Ya-Juan
Niu, Yi-Shuai
Sheshmani, Artan
Yau, Shing-Tung
Portfolio Management
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Optimization and Control
Computational Finance
90C30, 90C26, 90C06, 90C23, 91G10, 65K05
Unrestricted mean-variance-skewness-kurtosis portfolio optimization can capture asymmetry and tail risk, but sample-moment formulations become computationally impractical when the asset universe is large: they produce dense nonconvex quartic objectives with prohibitive coskewness and cokurtosis tensors and anisotropic, ill-conditioned level sets. We develop a structure-exploiting algorithm based on Yau's affine-normal descent that follows affine-normal directions of the current level set while working directly with the return matrix. The method avoids explicit higher-order tensors and exploits the quartic structure for exact sample oracles, derivative evaluation, and exact line search. We also provide theory for the reduced simplex formulation, including regularity and convexity conditions that separate data-map geometry from investor preference coefficients. Computational results show a clear implementation split: a direct configuration is effective on the standard small benchmark, whereas a preconditioned conjugate-gradient configuration with stall recovery becomes the preferred large-scale implementation by the upper end of the hundreds and remains competitive as the asset universe moves into the thousands. On a 5-minute A-share panel with 5,440 stocks, the method makes direct full-universe comparisons with exact mean-variance portfolios feasible and shows on the baseline split that the incremental value of higher moments is strongest at moderate return targets.
title Yau's Affine-Normal Descent for Large-Scale Unrestricted Higher-Moment Portfolio Optimization
topic Portfolio Management
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Optimization and Control
Computational Finance
90C30, 90C26, 90C06, 90C23, 91G10, 65K05
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.25378