$L_p$ regularized portfolio optimization

Abstract

Investors who optimize their portfolios under any of the coherent risk measures are naturally led to regularized portfolio optimization when they take into account the impact their trades make on the market. We show here that the impact function determines which regularizer is used. We also show that any regularizer based on the norm $L_p$ with $p>1$ makes the sensitivity of coherent risk measures to estimation error disappear, while regularizers with $p<1$ do not. The $L_1$ norm represents a border case: its "soft" implementation does not remove the instability, but rather shifts its locus, whereas its "hard" implementation (equivalent to a ban on short selling) eliminates it. We demonstrate these effects on the important special case of Expected Shortfall (ES) that is on its way to becoming the next global regulatory market risk measure.