Quantitative Portfolio Optimization developer example

Disclaimer

This project will download and install additional third-party open source software projects. Review the license terms of these open source projects before use.

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Overview

This developer example addresses the financial industry's trade-off between computational speed and model complexity in portfolio optimization. By leveraging NVIDIA accelerated computing, this solution transforms robust analysis (e.g., Mean-CVaR, large-scale simulations) from slow batch processing into a fast, iterative workflow for dynamic decision-making.

Accelerated Architecture

The end-to-end pipeline connects market data ingestion to optimal strategy backtesting using the NVIDIA CUDA ecosystem:

1. Data Science & Scenario Generation

• Technology: CUDA-X Data Science (cuDF, cuML)
• Function: Accelerates data preprocessing and the learning/sampling of return distributions.
• Performance: Achieves speedups of up to 100x when generating scenarios.

2. Mean-CVaR Optimization

• Technology: NVIDIA cuOpt open-source solvers.
• Function: Efficiently solves complex, scenario-based Mean-CVaR portfolio optimization problems.
• Performance: Consistently outperforms state-of-the-art CPU-based solvers, with up to 160x speedups in large-scale problems.

3. Strategy Backtesting & Refinement

• Technology: CUDA-X Data Science and HPC SDK.
• Function: Rigorously tests the trading strategies and provides insights into strategy fine-tuning.

Key Takeaways

• Speed-ups: Up to 160x faster optimization and 100x faster scenario generation.
• Risk Modeling: Enables the use of Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) at production speed.
• Iterative Workflow: Supports dynamic, fast, and data-driven optimization cycles.

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Get Started

System Requirements

Recommended Requirements for Best Performance

• System Architecture:
  • x86-64
  • ARM64
• GPU:
  • NVIDIA H100 SXM (compute capability >= 9.0) and above
• CPU:
  • 32+ cores
• System Memory:
  • 64+ GB RAM
• NVMe SSD Storage:
  • 100+ GB free space
• CUDA:
  • 13.0
• NVIDIA Drivers:
  • Latest NVIDIA drivers (580.65.06+)
• OS:
  • Linux distributions with glibc>=2.28 (released in August 2018):
    • Arch Linux (minimum version 2018-08-02)
    • Debian (minimum version 10.0)
    • Fedora (minimum version 29)
    • Linux Mint (minimum version 20)
    • Rocky Linux / Alma Linux / RHEL (minimum version 8)

The above configuration will provide optimal performance for large-scale optimization problems.

Installation on PyTorch Container

To install dependencies on the NVIDIA PyTorch container:

# Start the container. Publish 8888 for Jupyter and 8501 for Streamlit.
docker run --gpus all -it --rm \
  -v ./:/workspace/host \
  --ipc=host \
  -p 8888:8888 \
  -p 8501:8501 \
  nvcr.io/nvidia/pytorch:25.10-py3

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA-AI-Blueprints/cuFOLIO.git
cd cuFOLIO

# Install uv (if not already installed)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# To add $HOME/.local/bin to your PATH, either restart your shell or run:
source $HOME/.local/bin/env  # (sh, bash, zsh)
# source $HOME/.local/bin/env.fish  # (fish)

# Install with CUDA-specific dependencies
uv sync --extra cuda13 # this container image has cuda13

# Optional: Install development tools
uv sync --extra cuda13 --extra dev  

# Create a Jupyter kernel for this environment
uv run python -m ipykernel install --user --name=portfolio-opt --display-name "Portfolio Optimization"

# Launch Jupyter Lab
uv run jupyter lab --no-browser --NotebookApp.token=''

Note: If you use a different container image than the suggested one above, during uv sync, please use the --extra cuda12 or --extra cuda13 flag to install the GPU packages (cuOpt, cuML) matching your container's CUDA version. The uv sync command automatically creates a virtual environment and installs all dependencies from uv.lock.

Tip: To check your CUDA version, run nvidia-smi and look for "CUDA Version" in the output.

Important Notes:

• If you encounter "No space left on device" errors, set UV_CACHE_DIR to an alternate cache location: export UV_CACHE_DIR=/path/to/cache/directory
• The cuda12 and cuda13 extras are mutually exclusive - install only one based on your system's CUDA version
• If you plan to run the Streamlit demo from this container, include -p 8501:8501 when starting Docker. Docker port mappings cannot be added to an already-running container; restart the container with the port published if it was omitted.

Using the Jupyter Kernel

After launching Jupyter Lab:

1. Navigate to the notebooks/ directory
2. Open any notebook (e.g., cvar_basic.ipynb)
3. Select the "Portfolio Optimization" kernel from the kernel selector in the top-right corner
4. If the kernel is not visible, refresh the page or restart Jupyter Lab

To list all available kernels:

jupyter kernelspec list

To remove the kernel later (if needed):

jupyter kernelspec uninstall portfolio-opt

Quick Start Locally

Explore the example notebooks in the notebooks/ directory:

• cvar_basic.ipynb: Complete walkthrough of Mean-CVaR portfolio optimization with GPU acceleration
• efficient_frontier.ipynb: A quick tutorial on how to generate efficient frontier.
• rebalancing_strategies.ipynb Introduction to dynamic re-balancing and examples of testing strategies

Streamlit GTC Demo

The Streamlit demo from the GTC branch is available under demo/ as a dynamic rebalancing app.

If you are using the PyTorch Docker container above, make sure it was started with -p 8501:8501. Streamlit must bind to 0.0.0.0 inside the container so the published Docker port can receive browser traffic.

uv pip install -r demo/requirements.txt
uv run python -c "from cufolio.utils import download_data; download_data('data/stock_data', datasets=['sp500'])"
uv run streamlit run demo/rebalancing_streamlit_app.py --server.address 0.0.0.0 --server.port 8501

For a remote GPU host, also forward port 8501 from your laptop to the host running Docker:

ssh -L 8501:localhost:8501 <user>@<remote-host>

See demo/README_streamlit.md for focused deployment instructions.

Deploy on Brev

Deploy using Brev launchable: start an instance on Brev.nvidia.com and follow the instructions in the notebooks.

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Contribution Guidelines

We welcome contributions to this project! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines on:

• Code of conduct
• How to submit issues and feature requests
• Pull request process
• Coding standards and best practices

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Community

For questions, discussions, and community support:

• Issues: Report bugs and request features via GitHub Issues
• Discussions: Join conversations in GitHub Discussions

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References

• NVIDIA cuOpt Documentation
• RAPIDS cuML
• Markowitz, H. (1952). "Portfolio Selection". The Journal of Finance, 7(1), 77-91.
• Rockafellar, R. T., & Uryasev, S. (2000). "Optimization of conditional value-at-risk". Journal of Risk, 2, 21-42.

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License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.