We try to analyze the average correlation of a portfolio as it can be found here in section 2 b), the same formula which is also used by the CBOE to calculate implied correlations:
$$ \rho_{av(2)} = \frac{\sigma^2 - \sum_{i=1}^N w_i^2\sigma_i^2}{2 \sum_{i=1}^N \sum_{j>i}^N w_i w_j \sigma_i \sigma_j} $$
EDIT:Assuming that $\sigma^2 = \sum_{i=1}^N \sum_{j=1}^N w_i w_j \sigma_i \sigma_j \rho_{i,j}$, where $\rho_{i,i}=1$, for $i=1,\ldots,N$, the above expression can be written as $$ \rho_{av(2)} = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^N \sum_{j>i}^N w_i w_j \sigma_i \sigma_j \rho_{i,j}}{\sum_{i=1}^N \sum_{j>i}^N w_i w_j \sigma_i \sigma_j}. $$
The following questions arise.
- Assuming that $w_i \in \mathbb{R}$, i.e. long/short leverage is allowed, is it possible that $|\rho_{av(2)}|>1 $ ? Note that we don't assume $\sum w_i=1$.
- Does there already exist the notion of contribution to average correlation? Meaning that e.g. in a long/short portfolio, where average correlation should be close to zero, I can identify positions that drive the average correlation up (in absolute value).