PCA et IPCA : facteurs latents d’un panel d’actions US

# US equities panel: finding the few things three thousand stocks have in common


# US equities panel: finding the few things three thousand stocks have in common

Every model so far has predicted each stock from that stock's own features. But stocks do not
move independently - most of what a broad panel does on any day is one thing happening to all of
it, and a handful of further things happening to overlapping groups of it. A **latent factor**
is one of those common movements: not a column anybody computed, but a pattern extracted from
how the returns move together, with each stock carrying a **loading** saying how much of that
pattern it takes.

Two ways of extracting them are fitted here, and the difference between them is the whole
lesson:

- [`13a_pca`](13a_pca.ipynb) takes the factors from the return panel alone. Principal component
  analysis asks which combinations of stocks account for the most common variation, and answers
  without being told anything about the stocks. A loading is then a number attached to a stock,
  fitted over the training window and carried forward.
- [`13b_ipca`](13b_ipca.ipynb) conditions the loadings on what the stocks *are*. Instrumented
  principal components makes a stock's loading a function of its observable characteristics, so
  two stocks with the same characteristics load the same way and a stock whose characteristics
  change has its loading change with them.

**Why the second exists.** A loading attached to a stock says nothing about a stock that has not
been seen, and cannot move when the stock does. On a panel where names enter and leave and a
company's size and value change over a decade, that is a real limitation rather than a technical
one, and conditioning on characteristics is what removes it. What it costs is a stronger
assumption: that the relation between characteristics and loadings is stable, and is the same
for every stock.

**This notebook runs nothing.** It is the index over the two that do: it names them, opens what
they published, and shows that both are complete. Which of the two is worth more is a predictive
question, and it is answered in [`15_model_analysis`](15_model_analysis.ipynb).

**Learning objectives.** By the end of this notebook you will be able to:

- Say what a latent factor and a loading are, in terms of a panel of returns rather than of an
  algorithm.
- State the difference between a loading attached to a stock and a loading conditioned on the
  stock's characteristics, and name a situation in which only the second can answer.
- Say what the conditioned version assumes in exchange, and when that assumption would be
  uncomfortable.
- Read a table of published latent-factor results and tell a complete one from an incomplete one.

**Book reference**: Chapter 13.

**Prerequisites**: [`13a_pca`](13a_pca.ipynb) and [`13b_ipca`](13b_ipca.ipynb) have published the
results this index reads.

**What it writes**: nothing. It reads.

```python
"""Reference index for the latent-factor execution notebooks."""

import os
from pathlib import Path

import polars as pl

from case_studies.research import Study, open_study
```

```python
CASE_STUDY_ID = "us_equities_panel"
EXECUTION_TIER = "canonical"
WORKSPACE = "experiments"
```

## What the two notebooks published

One row per label per factor model. Read it for two things.

**Both models present at every label.** A label carrying a PCA row and no IPCA row means the
second notebook did not finish there, and the comparison in
[`15_model_analysis`](15_model_analysis.ipynb) would then be measuring a difference between
labels rather than between factor models.

**`cv_identity` the same across the rows being compared.** It records which walk-forward design
a result was fitted and scored under. Two rows with different values measured themselves over
different windows, and ranking them is not a comparison.

Canonical execution reads the released study; preview execution reads an isolated workspace.

```python
if EXECUTION_TIER == "canonical":
    # `Study.open` with no workspace, not `open_study`: this notebook writes nothing, and that is
    # the call that opens the released study read-only. `open_study` opens it for regeneration.
    study = Study.open(CASE_STUDY_ID)
elif EXECUTION_TIER == "preview":
    study = open_study(
        CASE_STUDY_ID,
        execution_tier=EXECUTION_TIER,
        workspace=Path(os.environ.get("ML4T_OUTPUT_DIR") or WORKSPACE),
    )
else:
    raise ValueError(f"Unsupported execution tier: {EXECUTION_TIER!r}")

latent_results = (
    study.predictions.table(include_preview=EXECUTION_TIER == "preview")
    .filter(
        (pl.col("family") == "latent_factors")
        & (pl.col("split") == "validation")
        & (pl.col("execution_tier") == EXECUTION_TIER)
        & pl.col("complete")
    )
    .select(
        "label",
        "config_name",
        "checkpoint_kind",
        "checkpoint_value",
        "cv_identity",
        "training_hash",
        "prediction_hash",
    )
    .sort("label", "config_name", "checkpoint_kind", "checkpoint_value")
)
# This notebook indexes what `13a_pca` and `13b_ipca` register and computes nothing of its
# own, so it has to run after them. Nothing else enforces that: the filter returns an empty
# frame rather than raising, the frame is the notebook's only result, and a render whose
# single result cell is blank is indistinguishable from a clean run. Empty is a different
# condition from the partial one the prose below anticipates - "if a row is missing above,
# run the notebook that produces it" expects some rows and got none, which means no
# latent-factor model has been fitted at all.
if latent_results.is_empty():
    raise ValueError(
        "no latent_factors predictions are registered for this execution tier: run "
        "13a_pca and 13b_ipca first. This notebook only indexes what they publish."
    )
latent_results
```

## What happens next

If a row is missing above, run the notebook that produces it - the execution notebooks reuse an
identity that already exists rather than refitting it, so re-running is cheap and safe.

[`15_model_analysis`](15_model_analysis.ipynb) reads these results alongside the other model
families and asks which ranks the cross-section better.
[`16_backtest`](16_backtest.ipynb) backtests every one of them. This index chooses nothing, and
the number of factors is not tuned anywhere in this case study: each model's preset declares one
and a sweep over that count would be a different experiment.

## What to notice

**The two models answer the same question with different information.** PCA sees only how the
returns moved together; IPCA is additionally told what each stock is. Any difference between
them is what the characteristics were worth, on this panel, under the assumption that the
relation between characteristics and loadings holds across stocks and over time.

**A factor model is a compression, and a compression discards.** A handful of factors summarise
a three-thousand-name panel, so whatever is specific to one stock is by construction not in the
prediction. That is the trade being made rather than a defect: the models before this one are
where stock-specific information lives.

**Known limitations.** The factor count is declared, not searched, so nothing here says the
declared one is right - only what it gives. Both models are fitted on training windows only and
scored on validation folds that have been read many times over by the time a case study reaches
this notebook. And a latent factor has no name: it is a direction in the returns, and reading an
economic story into it is an interpretation this notebook does not support.