English

A Double Categorical Framework for Multi-Stage Portfolio Construction and Alignment

Category Theory 2026-03-16 v1 General Economics Economics

Abstract

We construct a thin double category HS (Hub-and-Spoke) whose objects are closed subsets of standard simplices, horizontal morphisms are continuous maps representing portfolio re-implementation processes, and vertical morphisms are closed relations representing alignment constraints. This framework models industrial portfolio construction pipelines -- hierarchical structures in which a single investment strategy is translated through multiple stages into thousands of client portfolios. We establish four structural theorems: compositionality of alignment (functoriality), a pre-trade safety guarantee (adjunction), an order-independence result for compliance checking (lax Beck--Chevalley), and a filter-commutation law (Frobenius reciprocity). The topological requirement that permissible portfolio spaces be closed and compact -- ruling out ``phantom portfolios'' that arise from open constraint specifications -- is shown to be essential for coherence. Extensions to set-valued re-implementations via the Double Operadic Theory of Systems, stochastic re-implementations via Markov kernels on Polish spaces, and transport-based safety metrics via Wasserstein distances are developed. An abstract axiomatic treatment identifies the equipment axioms sufficient for the main results. The mathematical content is elementary -- no novel category theory is required. The contribution is the modelling claim: that these particular objects and morphisms formalise portfolio re-implementation correctly.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.12301,
  title  = {A Double Categorical Framework for Multi-Stage Portfolio Construction and Alignment},
  author = {Wesley Phoa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.12301},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

181 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:17:23.295Z