---
title: How Much Data Does an Information Coefficient Need? The Sampling Distribution of a Cross-Sectional IC, and Why Breadth Does Not Buy Precision
url: https://www.ml-quant.com/papers/ssrn/7672859/
site: ML-Quant (https://www.ml-quant.com)
updated: 2026-11-06
license: Summaries CC BY 4.0; links go to the original sources
index: https://www.ml-quant.com/llms.txt
identifier: SSRN 7672859
source_url: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7672859
featured: 2026-11-06
citations: unknown
topic: Econometrics & Forecasting
---


# How Much Data Does an Information Coefficient Need? The Sampling Distribution of a Cross-Sectional IC, and Why Breadth Does Not Buy Precision

Cross-sectional IC volatility has a floor from factor risk that does not shrink with breadth, capping effective sample size at roughly fifty observations.

- Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7672859
- Identifier: SSRN 7672859
- Released: 2026-11-03
- First featured: Quant Letter No. 138 (2026-11-06): https://www.ml-quant.com/issues/2026-11-06/
- Citations (Semantic Scholar): not tracked
- Published in: not yet
- Topic: Econometrics & Forecasting
- Authors: Himal Naidu

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