AI and machine learning#
This document contains links to resources to learn how to apply machine learning and AI in trading.
See also books and papers sections for more references and information.
Frameworks#
Ready made frameworks to apply Python and machine learning for trading data.
FinRL: Financial Reinforcement Learning#
FinRL provides a framework that supports various markets, SOTA DRL algorithms, benchmarks of many quant finance tasks, live trading, etc.
Reinforcement learning (RL) trains an agent to solve tasks by trial and error, while DRL uses deep neural networks as function approximators. DRL balances exploration (of uncharted territory) and exploitation (of current knowledge), and has been recognized as a competitive edge for automated trading. DRL framework is powerful in solving dynamic decision making problems by learning through interactions with an unknown environment, thus exhibiting two major advantages: portfolio scalability and market model independence. Automated trading is essentially making dynamic decisions, namely to decide where to trade, at what price, and what quantity, over a highly stochastic and complex stock market. Taking many complex financial factors into account, DRL trading agents build a multi-factor model and provide algorithmic trading strategies, which are difficult for human traders.
Universal Portfolios#
The purpose of this Python package is to put together different Online Portfolio Selection (OLPS) algorithms and provide unified tools for their analysis.
In short, the purpose of OLPS is to choose portfolio weights in every period to maximize its final wealth. Examples of such portfolios could be the Markowitz portfolio or the Universal portfolio. There is currently an active research in the area of online portfolios and even though the results are mostly theoretical, algorithms for practical use start to appear.
Several state-of-the-art algorithms are implemented, based on my understanding of the available literature. Contributions or corrections are more than welcomed.
- Examples contains two Python Notebooks:
Online Portfolios : explains the basic use of the library. Script sequence, various options, method arguments, and a strategy template to get you started.
Modern Portfolio Theory : goes deeper into the OLPS principle and the tools developped in this library to approach it.
universal.algos hosts the implementations of various OLPS algorithms from the literature
universal.result computes the portfolio wealth from the weights and various metrics on the strategy’s performance.
Books#
Here is a list of books for learning to use AI and machine learning in trading.
Advances in Financial Machine Learning#
Machine learning (ML) is changing virtually every aspect of our lives. Today, ML algorithms accomplish tasks that – until recently – only expert humans could perform. And finance is ripe for disruptive innovations that will transform how the following generations understand money and invest.
In the book, readers will learn how to:
Structure big data in a way that is amenable to ML algorithms
Conduct research with ML algorithms on big data
Use supercomputing methods and back test their discoveries while avoiding false positives
Advances in Financial Machine Learning addresses real life problems faced by practitioners every day, and explains scientifically sound solutions using math, supported by code and examples. Readers become active users who can test the proposed solutions in their individual setting.
Written by a recognized expert and portfolio manager Marcos López de Prado, this book will equip investment professionals with the groundbreaking tools needed to succeed in modern finance.
Machine Learning for Algorithmic Trading: Predictive models to extract signals from market and alternative data for systematic trading strategies with Python#
The definite book for machine learning-based trading.
This book introduces end-to-end machine learning for the trading workflow, from the idea and feature engineering to model optimization, strategy design, and backtesting. It illustrates this by using examples ranging from linear models and tree-based ensembles to deep-learning techniques from cutting edge research.
This edition shows how to work with market, fundamental, and alternative data, such as tick data, minute and daily bars, SEC filings, earnings call transcripts, financial news, or satellite images to generate tradeable signals. It illustrates how to engineer financial features or alpha factors that enable an ML model to predict returns from price data for US and international stocks and ETFs. It also shows how to assess the signal content of new features using Alphalens and SHAP values and includes a new appendix with over one hundred alpha factor examples.
By the end, you will be proficient in translating ML model predictions into a trading strategy that operates at daily or intraday horizons, and in evaluating its performance. What you will learn
Leverage market, fundamental, and alternative text and image data
Research and evaluate alpha factors using statistics, Alphalens, and SHAP values
Implement machine learning techniques to solve investment and trading problems
Backtest and evaluate trading strategies based on machine learning using Zipline and Backtrader
Optimize portfolio risk and performance analysis using pandas, NumPy, and pyfolio
Create a pairs trading strategy based on cointegration for US equities and ETFs
Train a gradient boosting model to predict intraday returns using AlgoSee’s high-quality trades and quotes data
ML for Trading#
This book aims to show how ML can add value to algorithmic trading strategies in a practical yet comprehensive way. It covers a broad range of ML techniques from linear regression to deep reinforcement learning and demonstrates how to build, backtest, and evaluate a trading strategy driven by model predictions.
Github repository available.
Machine Learning for Algorithmic Trading#
A book by Stefan Jansen alongside the ZipLine reloaded and community forum.
Master AI-Driven Algorithmic Trading#
This is an intense online training program about Python techniques for algorithmic trading. By signing up to this program you get access to 150+ hours of live/recorded instruction, 1,200+ pages PDF as well as 5,000+ lines of Python code and 60+ Jupyter Notebooks (read the 16 week study plan). Master AI-Driven Algorithmic Trading, get started today.
Videos#
Crypto Trading Using FinRL#
Explaining crypto trading using FinRL.
Stock Trading AI with FinRL in Python#
Wrangling
Trading and fitting
Backtesting against mean-variance optimised portfolio
Papers#
Algorithmic trading using continuous action space deep reinforcement learning#
Finding a more efficient trading strategy has always been one of the main concerns in financial market trading. In order to create trading strategies that lead to higher profits, historical data must be used. Due to a large amount of financial data and various factors affecting them, algorithmic trading and, more recently, artificial intelligence are employed to overcome the decision-making complexity. This paper aims to introduce a new approach using Twin-Delayed DDPG (TD3) and the daily close price to create a trading strategy. As a continuous action space deep reinforcement learning algorithm, in contrast to the discrete ones, the TD3 provides us with both the number of trading shares and the trading positions. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, the comparison results of our approach and other commonly-used algorithms such as technical analysis, reinforcement learning, supervised learning, stochastic strategies, and deterministic strategies are reported. By employing both position and the number of trading shares, we show that the performance of a trading strategy can be improved in terms of Return and Sharpe ratio.
Deep Learning Applying on Stock Trading#
The project proposes to leverage machine learning advantage in data mining, forecasting, automatic trading to explore different approaches to get a profitable portfolio. In our work, to obtain a profitable stock trading portfolio, we design indirectly trading and directly trading approaches–time series forecasting and reinforcement learning– with different Deep Learning models’ advantages. Time series forecasting model is used to predict the market price and apply basic trading strategy based on the result, while reinforcement learning model directly learns and outputs with trading action to build portfolio.
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Financial Portfolio Optimisation#
Portfolio Selection (PS) is a perennial financial engineering problem that requires determining a strategy for dynamically allocating wealth among a set of portfolio assets to maximise the long-term return. We investigate state-of-the-art Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms that have proven to be ideal for continuous action spaces, mainly Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) and Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3), for the PS problem. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of including stock movement prediction indicators in the state representation and the potential of using an ensemble framework that combines multiple DRL models. We formulate experiments to evaluate our DRL models on real data from the American stock market, against benchmarks including state-of-the-art online portfolio selection (OLPS) approaches, using measures consisting of Average daily yield, Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio and Maximum drawdown. Our experiments show that TD3-based models generally perform better than DDPG-based ones when used on real stock trading data. Furthermore, the introduction of additional financial indicators in the state representation was found to have a positive effect overall. Lastly, an ensemble model also showed promising results, consistently beating the baselines used, albeit not all other DRL models.
From Man vs. Machine to Man Machine: The Art and AI of Stock Analyses#
We train an AI analyst that digests corporate disclosures, industry trends, and macroeconomic indicators to the extent it beats most analysts. Human wins the “Man vs. Machine” contest when a firm is complex with intangible assets, and AI wins when information is transparent but voluminous. Analysts catch up with machines over time, especially after firms are covered by alternative data and their institutions build AI capabilities. AI power and human wisdom are complementary in generating accurate forecasts and mitigating extreme errors, portraying a future of “Man + Machine” (instead of human displacement) in financial analyses, and likely other high-skill professions.
Can Machines Time Markets? The Virtue of Complexity in Return Prediction#
Machine learning techniques can be used to improve market timing strategies by picking up nonlinearities between the predictor variables (i.e., signals) and returns. In order to identify the nonlinearities, complex models – i.e., models where the number of predictor variables is larger than the number of return time series observations – must be estimated. More complex models better identify the true nonlinear relationships and, thus, produce better market timing strategy performance.
This “virtue of complexity” result is validated in three practical market timing applications: timing the stock market, the bond market, and the long/short value factor. The performance improvements are real but modest, consistent with the view that machine learning applied to return prediction leads to evolutionary, not revolutionary, wealth gains.
XGBoost for Classifying Ethereum Short-term Return Based on Technical Factor#
The concept of digital cash has the potential to completely change how people think about money. Digital currency has emerged as a possible alternative for exchanging currency and traditional payment systems, in addition to a popular investment option due to its potential for high returns. One of the three main varieties of digital currency is cryptocurrency that is secured by blockchain technology. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many other cryptocurrencies exist in crypto markets. Investing in cryptocurrencies still carries risks and uncertainties due to the price volatility. It is thus important to approach such investments with caution and thoroughly research the market and its risks before making investment decisions. This paper presents an application of AI technology for learning the price movement of Ethereum (ETH) which is second only to Bitcoin in market capitalization. Based on the Technical factor, the XGBoost model is constructed for classification of return on Ethereum close price. The technical indicators such as moving averages and relative strength index, together with the Bitcoin price trend are chosen to determine influence on Ethereum price further used for computing the short-term return separate into 3 classes: downtrend, sideway, and uptrend. The model performance is measured by multiclass ROC-AUC, achieving the micro-average ROC-AUC of 0.66 saying the model is reasonably good at predicting the overall trend of ETH price.
Predicting Cryptocurrency Prices with Machine Learning Algorithms: A Comparative Analysis#
Due to its decentralized nature and opportunity for substantial gains, cryptocurrency has become a popular investment opportunity. However, the highly unpredictable and volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market poses a challenge for investors looking to predict price movements and make profitable investments. Time series analysis, which recognizes trends and patterns in previous price data to create forecasts about future price movements, is one of the prominent and effective techniques for price prediction. Integrating Machine learning (ML) techniques and technical indicators along with time series analysis, can enhance the prediction ac- curacy significantly.
Objectives. The objective of this thesis is to identify an effective ML algorithm for making long-term predictions of Bitcoin prices, by developing prediction models using the ML algorithms and making predictions using the technical indicators(Relative Strength Index (RSI), Exponential Moving Average (EMA), Simple Moving Aver- age (SMA)) as input for these models.
Multivariate cryptocurrency prediction: comparative analysis of three recurrent neural networks approaches#
As a new type of currency introduced in the new millennium, cryptocurrency has established its ecosystems and attracts many people to use and invest in it. However, cryptocurrencies are highly dynamic and volatile, making it challenging to predict their future values. In this research, we use a multivariate prediction approach and three different recurrent neural networks (RNNs), namely the long short-term memory (LSTM), the bidirectional LSTM (Bi-LSTM), and the gated recurrent unit (GRU). We also propose simple three layers deep networks architecture for the regression task in this study. From the experimental results on five major cryptocurrencies, i.e., Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Tether (USDT), and Binance Coin (BNB), we find that both Bi-LSTM and GRU have similar performance results in terms of accuracy. However, in terms of the execution time, both LSTM and GRU have similar results, where GRU is slightly better and has lower variation results on average.
Can machines learn finance?#
Machine learning for asset management faces a unique set of challenges that differ markedly from other domains where machine learning has excelled. Understanding these differences is critical for developing impactful approaches and realistic expectations for machine learning in asset management. We discuss a variety of beneficial use cases and potential pitfalls, and emphasize the importance of economic theory and human expertise for achieving success through financial machine learning.
Data Resampling for Cryptocurrency Investment with Ensemble of Machine Learning Algorithms#
This work proposes a system based on machine learning aimed at creating an investment strategy capable of trading on the volatile cryptocurrency exchange markets with the highest returns and lowest risk. With the former goal in mind, several methods are employed for resampling the original financial data into a time series more prone of obtaining higher returns and the final results are compared to the obtained with commonly utilized time sampled series. These methods resample the original financial time series according to price action rather than a fixed time period. Simply put, the original samples are grouped as the closing value surpasses a threshold variation of quote currency. Three experimental thresholds were analysed: percentual value, fixed amount and fixed logarithmic amount.
BITCOIN-USD Trading Using SVM to Detect The Current day’s Trend in The Market#
Cryptocurrency trade is now a popular type of investment. Cryptocurrency market has been treated similar to foreign exchange and stock market. The Characteristics of Bitcoin have made Bitcoin keep rising In the last few years. Bitcoin exchange rate to American Dollar (USD) is $3990 USD on November 2018, with daily pice fluctuations could reach 4.55%2. It is important to able to predict value to ensure profitable investment. However, because of its volatility, there’s a need for a prediction tool for investors to help them consider investment decisions for cryptocurrency trade. Nowadays, computing based tools are commonly used in stock and foreign exchange market predictions. There has been much research about SVM prediction on stocks and foreign exchange as case studies but none on cryptocurrency. Therefore, this research studied method to predict the market value of one of the most used cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. The preditct methods will be used on this research is regime prediction to develop model to predict the close value of Bitcoin and use Support vector classifier algorithm to predict the current day’s trend at the opening of the market
Intelligent Algorithmic Trading Strategy Using Reinforcement Learning and Directional Change#
Designing a profitable trading strategy plays a critical role in algorithmic trading, where the algorithm can manage and execute automated trading decisions. Determining a specific trading rule for trading at a particular time is a critical research problem in financial market trading. However, an intelligent, and a dynamic algorithmic trading driven by the current patterns of a given price time-series may help deal with this issue. Thus, Reinforcement Learning (RL) can achieve optimal dynamic algorithmic trading by considering the price time-series as its environment. A comprehensive representation of the environment states is indeed vital for proposing a dynamic algorithmic trading using RL. Therefore, we propose a representation of the environment states using the Directional Change (DC) event approach with a dynamic DC threshold. We refer to the proposed algorithmic trading approach as the DCRL trading strategy.
Deep Reinforcement Trading with Predictable Returns#
Classical portfolio optimization often requires forecasting asset returns and their corresponding variances in spite of the low signal-to-noise ratio provided in the financial markets. Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) offers a framework for optimizing sequential trader decisions through an objective which represents its reward function penalized by risk and transaction costs. We investigate the performance of model-free DRL traders in a market environment with frictions and different meanreverting factors driving the dynamics of the returns. Since this framework admits an exact dynamic programming solution, we can assess limits and capabilities of different value-based algorithms to retrieve meaningful trading signals in a datadriven manner and to reach the benchmark performance.