medium · Quantitative Finance prob-stats

Which property of a covariance matrix Σ is utilized when using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to decompose portfolio risk?

  1. The determinant of covariance matrix Sigma always equals one.
  2. Sigma always has a trace of zero, meaning total portfolio risk is fully eliminated.
  3. The covariance matrix Sigma is always structured as upper triangular.
  4. Σ is a symmetric matrix, allowing for an orthogonal basis of eigenvectors.

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