  Many multivariate statistical methods rely heavily on the sample covariance
matrix. It is well known though that the sample covariance matrix is highly
non-robust. One popular alternative approach for "robustifying" the
multivariate method is to simply replace the role of the covariance matrix with
some robust scatter matrix. The aim of this paper is to point out that in some
situations certain properties of the covariance matrix are needed for the
corresponding robust "plug-in" method to be a valid approach, and that not all
scatter matrices necessarily possess these important properties. In particular,
the following three multivariate methods are discussed in this paper:
independent components analysis, observational regression and graphical
modeling. For each case, it is shown that using a symmetrized robust scatter
matrix in place of the covariance matrix results in a proper robust
multivariate method.
