TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lehmann, Bruce N
AU  - Modest, David M
TI  - Diversification and the Optimal Construction of Basis Portfolios
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9461
PY  - 2003
Y2  - January 2003
DO  - 10.3386/w9461
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9461
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9461.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Bruce Lehmann
E-Mail: N/A user is deceased
AB  - Nontrivial diversification possibilities arise when a factor model describes security returns. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive examination of the merits of various strategies for constructing basis portfolios that are, in principle, highly correlated with the common factors underlying security returns. Three main conclusions emerge from our study. First, increasing the number of securities included in the analysis dramatically improves basis portfolio performance. Our results indicate that factor models involving 750 securities provide markedly superior performance to those involving 30 or 250 securities. Second, comparatively efficient estimation procedures such as maximum likelihood and restricted maximum likelihood factor analysis (which imposes the APT mean restriction) significantly outperform the less efficient instrumental variables and principal components procedures that have been proposed in the literature. Third, a variant of the usual Fama-MacBeth portfolio formation procedure, which we call the minimum idiosyncratic risk portfolio formation procedure, outperformed the Fama-MacBeth procedure and proved equal to or better than more expensive quadratic programming procedures.
ER  -