Constructing a Notional-Weighted Portfolio Liquidity Measure
Summary
The document discusses how to compare the liquidity of portfolios holding different assets and weights. It argues that a portfolio metric should begin with a liquidity estimate for each asset, then combine those estimates using each asset’s share of portfolio notional. A raw average of trading volumes can ignore portfolio concentration, while multiplying volume by portfolio weight alone is not presented as a general measure of tradability.
Where direct liquidity observations are unavailable, the answer suggests assigning estimates through a reference grid of assets with known liquidity and similar characteristics. The metric can use one or more asset attributes and an interpolation method, with bond haircuts or the CDS-bond basis mentioned as possible proxies. It also cautions that liquidity depends on trade size: a position that is large relative to market volume may warrant a lower liquidity assessment. The proposal is a flexible framework, not a standardized formula with validated predictive performance. Comparisons depend on consistent asset-level definitions, reference data, weighting conventions, and treatment of portfolio size and market impact.
Key ideas
- Portfolio liquidity should aggregate asset-level liquidity estimates according to portfolio notionals.
- An unweighted mean of trading volumes can misrepresent a concentrated portfolio.
- Reference assets and shared characteristics can help estimate liquidity where direct observations are missing.
- Liquidity estimates may need adjustment when a position is large relative to the asset’s trading volume.
- Cross-portfolio comparisons depend on consistent definitions and estimation choices.
Tags
Full text
# How to calculate average liquidity of a portfolio with multiple assets and weights?
# How to calculate average liquidity of a portfolio with multiple assets and weights?
I have a weighted portfolio with several assets and weights.
Liquidity of my assets varies from low to high and concentration of assets in the portfolio change from one asset to another, for example asset 1 may represent 5% of the portfolio with volume = 1.000.000,00 USD when asset 2 has 40% of the portfolio with volume = 200.000.000,00 USD over the same period.
How can I measure the average liquidity of my portfolio to compare it's traddability with another portfolios with differents assets and weights ?
My first idea is simply to mean the all assets volume over a given period but unfortunatly it doesn't takes into account weights of every single assets in the portfolio.
Second idea is to weight trading volume by it's corresponding asset's weight. For example liquidity of asset 1 would be `$1.000.000 * 0.05 = $50.000` and liquidity of asset 2 would be `200.000.000,00 * 0.4 = $80.000.000`
Is this consistent with a measure of the average liquidity of a weighted portfolio ?
Thank you,
## Answer by Mehness (score 1)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/31212
Sounds like you need a liquidity metric per asset - do you have publically available trading volumes for all your assets so that in addition to the portfolio weight you can ascribe a liquidity number to each asset? If you don't have such a metric for all assets you may want to consider interpolating the assets over a liquidity grid (created using assets for which you do have a number) using some underlying property of the assets (eg for bonds you could consider ECB haircuts / cds-bond basis as proxies for 'liquidity' metrics - however these latter will be dynamic which may or may not be desirable). Once you have a liquidity grid in which discretely, or continuously to bucket your assets, then the notional weighted liquidity measure would give you a metric to compare the liquidity of your portfolio to that of another, or indeed to those of assets that define your liquidity grid. Then:
$$Portfolio \; average \;liquidity\;\Lambda(\Pi)=\frac{\sum\limits_iN_i\cdot w_i\cdot \lambda(A_i)}{\sum\limits_iN_i\cdot w_i}$$
where $\lambda(A_i)=\phi(x_{i_1},...,x_{i_n}, G)$ is the individual asset liquidity metric where $\phi$ is some possibly mutivariate interpolation scheme that associates with each asset, based on asset attributes $\{x_{i_k}\}$ and a grid $G$ of reference assets whose liquidities are known vs those same attributes, a liquidity number. It might also be wise to make the asset liquidity a function of volume in your portfolio (eg if your quantity is several times the daily trading volume then it makes sense to attenuate the liquidity number. This is pretty general, you could make things a lot more straightforward with simplifying assumptions, the simplest being if you assets themselves had accessible trading data and so in a sense are themselves reference assets for your interpolation. my 2 cents' anyway - let me know if barking up wrong tree!Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.