Financial time series and neural networks in a minority game context (original) (raw)

Financial time series analysis with competitive neural networks

2018

I would also like to thank my colleagues at IPSOL Capital, where I completed a 4 month internship through the Mitacs program, in collaboration with the University. The financial support and insights into the world of financial modeling were very useful for my report. Particular thanks to Luc Gosselin whose insights into the world of finance were invaluable in the presentation of my results. Finally, I would like to thank my friend and colleague, Jean Hounkpe, who also provided me with valuable insights into mathematical modelling and never hesitated to lend me a helping hand in formulating my thoughts during the writing of this thesis.

A Critique of the Standard Neural Network Application to Financial Time Series Analysis

Neural networks are one of the most widely used arti cial intelligence methods for nancial time series analysis. In this paper we describe the standard application of neural networks and suggest that it has two shortcomings. First, backpropagation search takes place in sum of squared errors space instead of risk-adjusted return space. Second, the standard neural network has di culty ignoring noise and focusing in on discoverable regularities. Both problems are illustrated with simple examples. We suggest ways of overcoming these problems.

The role of predictability of financial series in emerging market applications

2008

A new metric that quantifies the predictability of financial time series is proposed. Time series predictability provides a measure of how well a time series can be modeled by a particular method, or how well a prediction can be made. This new time series predictability metric is developed based on the Kaboudan η -metric. The new metrics, based on Genetic Programming (GP) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) overcomes the stationarity problem presented in the pure η -metric and provides a new feature, which shows how the predictability changes over different subsequences in a time series. Timing detection and portfolio balancing should be based on trading strategies that evolved to optimize buy/sell decisions. The interest is to explore new trading rules based on an automated security trading decision support system triggered by both quantitative and qualitative factors. The focus is to develop quantitative metrics that characterize time series according to their ability to be modeled by a particular method, such as the predictability of a time series using the GP approach or an ANN.

Applied Financial Time Series Modelling: Forming a betting strategy based on the identifiable anomalies of European football fixed-odds betting markets

Given the highly competitive and risky nature of contemporary financial markets, one of the central issues is their information efficiency, i.e. the degree to which prices reflect all available information. Fixed-odds gambling markets have been put forward repeatedly as a proxy for financial markets in order to examine the efficient markets hypothesis, due to their depth (multitude of events and derived betting proposals), well-defined termination point of transactions and determinism regarding the realisation of returns, i.e. the transaction pay-off. This dissertation assesses the informational, semi-strong efficiency of European football betting markets by examining the “forecastability” of a particular game outcome (goal difference) for matches between two football clubs – Bayern Munich and Chelsea – with a subsequent evaluation of the profitability of betting strategies derived from these forecasts. For the purpose of forecasting, a set of adaptive bilinear time series models has been developed which allows for more robust statistical inference than hitherto proposed in the academic literature on European football betting markets, e.g. in Vlastakis, et al. (2009), Dixon & Coles (1997) and Pope & Peel (1989). In addition, it has been shown that the models are computationally obtainable and significant. The empirical results show that the proposed betting strategy against the Asian Handicap betting lines yields superior profits, thus rejecting the assumption regarding the semi-strong form efficiency of European football betting markets, in spite of deregulation, globalisation and fierce competition in the betting industry over recent years. The insights presented in this dissertation may prove useful to bookmakers, enabling them to adjust their game forecasting and odd calculation models; to punters, for defining profitable betting strategies; to financial market analysts, for testing their trading strategies and models and to public policymakers, to help formulate laws and policies on gambling regulation and taxation. Keywords: Betting Markets; Market Efficiency; European Football; Time Series Forecasting; ARMAX; Bilinear Time Series

Artificial Neural Networks: A Financial Tool As Applied in the Australian Market

1997

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Minority Game Data Mining for Stock Market Predictions

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2010

The Minority Game (MG) is a simple model for understanding collective behavior of agents in an idealized situation for a finite resource. It has been regarded as an interesting complex dynamical disordered system from a statistical mechanics point of view. In previous work, we have investigated the problem of learning the agent behaviors in the minority game by assuming the existence of one "intelligent agent" who can learn from other agent behaviors. In this paper, we propose a framework, Minority Game Data Mining (MGDM), that assumes the collective data are generated from combining the behaviors of variant groups of agents following the minority game. We then apply this framework to real-world time-series data analysis by testing on a few stocks from the Chinese market and the US Dollar-RMB exchange rate. The experimental results suggest that the winning rate of the new model is statistically better than a random walk.

Beauty of financial time series

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2001

AIP qualitative method of discrimination of a dynamical system among stochastic noise, deterministic noise or deterministic function is applied to three stock market indices to identify similarities and discrepancies between developed and emergent markets when some expectations for extraordinary proÿts are present.

Cycles, determinism and persistence in agent-based games and financial time-series

arXiv (Cornell University), 2008

The Minority Game (MG), the Majority Game (MAJG) and the Dollar Game ($G) are important and closely-related versions of market-entry games designed to model different features of real-world financial markets. In a variant of these games, agents measure the performance of their available strategies over a fixed-length rolling window of prior timesteps. These are the so-called Time Horizon MG/MAJG/$G (THMG, THMAJG, TH$G)s. Their probabilistic dynamics may be completely characterized in Markov-chain formulation. Games of both the standard and TH variants generate time-series that may be understood as arising from a stochastically perturbed determinism because a coin toss is used to break ties. The average over the binomially-distributed coin-tosses yields the underlying determinism. In order to quantify the degree of this determinism and of higher-order perturbations, we decompose the sign of the time-series they generate (analogous to a market price time series) into a superposition of weighted Hamiltonian cycles on graphs-exactly in the TH variants and approximately in the standard versions. The cycle decomposition also provides a "dissection" of the internal dynamics of the games and a quantitative measure of the degree of determinism. We discuss how the outperformance of strategies relative to agents in the THMG-the "illusion of control"and the reverse in the THMAJG and TH$G, i.e., genuine control-may be understood on a cycle-by-cycle basis. The decomposition offers as well a new metric for comparing different game dynamics to real-world financial time-series and a method for generating predictors. We apply the cycle predictor a real-world market, with significantly positive returns for the latter.

Cycles, determinism and persistence in agent-based games and financial time-series: part II

Quantitative Finance, 2012

The Minority Game (MG), the Majority Game (MAJG) and the Dollar Game ($G) are important and closely-related versions of market-entry games designed to model different features of real-world financial markets. In a variant of these games, agents measure the performance of their available strategies over a fixed-length rolling window of prior timesteps. These are the so-called Time Horizon MG/MAJG/$G (THMG, THMAJG, TH$G)s. Their probabilistic dynamics may be completely characterized in Markov-chain formulation. Games of both the standard and TH variants generate time-series that may be understood as arising from a stochastically perturbed determinism because a coin toss is used to break ties. The average over the binomially-distributed coin-tosses yields the underlying determinism. In order to quantify the degree of this determinism and of higher-order perturbations, we decompose the sign of the time-series they generate (analogous to a market price time series) into a superposition of weighted Hamiltonian cycles on graphs-exactly in the TH variants and approximately in the standard versions. The cycle decomposition also provides a "dissection" of the internal dynamics of the games and a quantitative measure of the degree of determinism. We discuss how the outperformance of strategies relative to agents in the THMG-the "illusion of control"and the reverse in the THMAJG and TH$G, i.e., genuine control-may be understood on a cycle-by-cycle basis. The decomposition offers as well a new metric for comparing different game dynamics to real-world financial time-series and a method for generating predictors. We apply the cycle predictor a real-world market, with significantly positive returns for the latter.

Some Remarks About Financial Market Modelling Using a Minority Game Approach

The methods adopted by static physics corroborating the existence of electromagnetic forces are applicable to the theory of financial markets. Perceived from a classically physical angle, the financial market is defined as a system composed of several individual entries cooperating upon electromagnetic principles. The approach concerned gives rise to a certain model of financial market, otherwise known as a minority game. In the case of minority game, the allocation of securities and funds is conditioned exclusively upon the fluctuation of prices, where a higher tendency to purchase goods and stocks results in the scale being more profitable and vice versa. Thus players from a minority group gain a prevailing position.