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In this paper, we propose an adaptive entropy model (AEM), which incorporates the entropy measurement and the adaptability into the conventional Markowitz’s mean-variance model (MVM). We evaluate the performance of AEM, based on several portfolio performance indicators using the five-year Shanghai Stock Exchange 50 (SSE50) index constituent stocks data set. Our outcomes show, compared with the traditional portfolio selection model, that AEM tends to make our investments more decentralized and hence helps to neutralize unsystematic risks. Due to the existence of self-adaptation, AEM turns out to be more adaptable to market fluctuations and helps to maintain the balance between the decentralized and concentrated investments in order to meet investors’ expectations. Our model applies equally well to portfolio optimizations for other financial markets.

The aim of this research is to analyse the effectiveness of the Chicago Board Options Exchange Market Volatility Index (VIX) when used with Support Vector Machines (SVMs) in order to forecast the weekly change in the S&P 500 index. The data provided cover the period between 3 January 2000 and 30 December 2011. A trading simulation is implemented so that statistical efficiency is complemented by measures of economic performance. The inputs retained are traditional technical trading rules commonly used in the analysis of equity markets such as Relative Strength Index, Moving Average Convergence Divergence, VIX and the daily return of the S&P 500. The SVM identifies the best situations in which to buy or sell in the market. The two outputs of the SVM are the movement of the market and the degree of set membership. The obtained results show that SVM using VIX produce better results than the Buy and Hold strategy or SVM without VIX. The influence of VIX in the trading system is particularly significant when bearish periods appear. Moreover, the SVM allows the reduction in the Maximum Drawdown and the annualised standard deviation.

This research aims at examining the application of support vector machines (SVMs) to the task of forecasting the weekly change in the Madrid IBEX-35 stock index. The data cover the period between 10/18/1990 and 10/29/2010. A trading simulation is implemented so that statistical efficiency is complemented by measures of economic performance. The inputs retained are traditional technical trading rules commonly used in the analysis of equity markets such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) decision rules. The SVMs with given values of the RSI and MACD indicators are used in order to determine the best situations to buy or sell the market. The two outputs of the SVM are both the direction of the market and the probability attached to each forecast market move. The best result that it has been achieved is a hit ratio of 100% using the SVM classifier under some chosen risk-aversion parameters. However, these results are obtained analyzing recent periods rather than using all the dataset information.

What do hedge funds really do? These lightly regulated funds continually innovate new investing and trading strategies to take advantage of temporary mispricing of assets (when their market price deviates from their intrinsic value). These techniques are shrouded in mystery, which permits hedge fund managers to charge exceptionally high fees. While the details of each fund's approach are carefully guarded trade secrets, this book draws the curtain back on the core building blocks of many hedge fund strategies.

The motivation for this article is to check whether neural network models have remained a superior method for forecasting the EUR/USD exchange rate during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Alternative neural network architectures (Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Recurrent Neural Network and Higher Order Neural Network (HONN)) are benchmarked against a random walk and a traditional ARMA model, and evaluated in terms of statistical accuracy and through a trading simulation on daily data over the period from January 2000 to February 2009, the period from August 2007 to February 2009, providing the out-of-sample testing period. Transaction costs and a confirmation filter devised to reduce false signals and thus also reduce losses and transaction costs were also taken into consideration. It is shown that the HONN structure gives the overall best results on a simple trading simulation; however, for an advanced trading simulation with a confirmation filter, the MLP outperforms all other models on most performance measures. On the whole, the results show that neural networks are still able to produce forecasts that yield a positive return and are superior to those of linear and more traditional models, with respect to both trading performance and statistical accuracy, even under very volatile market conditions. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

The objective of this study is to investigate the use, the stability and the robustness of alternative novel neural network (NN) architectures when applied to the task of forecasting and trading the Euro/Dollar (EUR/USD) exchange rate using the European Central Bank (ECB) fixing series with only autoregressive terms as inputs. This is achieved by benchmarking the forecasting performance of three different NN designs representing a Higher Order Neural Network (HONN), a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and the classic Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) with some traditional techniques, either statistical, such as an autoregressive moving average model, or technical, such as a moving average convergence/divergence model, plus a naïve strategy. More specifically, the trading performance of all models is investigated in a forecast and trading simulation on the EUR/USD ECB fixing time series over the period January 1999 - August 2008 using the last 8 months for out-of-sample testing. Our results in terms of their robustness and stability are compared with a previous study by the authors, who apply the same models and follow the same methodology forecasting the same series, using as out-of-sample the period from July 2006 to December 2007. As it turns out, the HONN and MLP networks present a robust performance and do remarkably well in outperforming all other models in a simple trading simulation exercise in both studies. Moreover, when transaction costs are considered and leverage is applied, the same networks continue to outperform all other NN and traditional statistical models in terms of annualised return - a robust and stable result as it is identical to that obtained by the authors in their previous study, examining a different period for the series. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

We study how investor sentiment affects stock prices around the world. Relying on households' Google search behavior, we construct a weekly measure of sentiment for 38 countries during 2004–2014.We validate the sentiment index in tests using sports outcomes and show that the sentiment measure is a contrarian predictor of country-level market returns. Furthermore, we document an important role of global sentiment in stock markets.

We provide an explicit closed-form strategy for an investor who executes a large order when market order-flow from all agents, including the investor’s own trades, has a permanent price impact. The strategy is found in closed-form when the permanent and temporary price impacts are linear in the market’s and investor’s rates of trading. We do this under very general assumptions about the stochastic process followed by the order-flow of the market. The optimal strategy consists of an Almgren–Chriss execution strategy adjusted by a weighted-average of the future expected net order-flow (given by the difference of the market’s rate of buy and sell market orders) over the execution trading horizon and proportional to the ratio of permanent to temporary linear impacts. We use historical data to calibrate the model to Nasdaq traded stocks and use simulations to show how the strategy performs.

We incorporate a Markovian signal in the optimal trading framework which was initially proposed by Gatheral et al. (Math. Finance 22:445–474, 2012) and provide results on the existence and uniqueness of an optimal trading strategy. Moreover, we derive an explicit singular optimal strategy for the special case of an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck signal and an exponentially decaying transient market impact. The combination of a mean-reverting signal along with a market impact decay is of special interest, since they affect the short term price variations in opposite directions. Later, we show that in the asymptotic limit where the transient market impact becomes instantaneous, the optimal strategy becomes continuous. This result is compatible with the optimal trading framework which was proposed by Cartea and Jaimungal (Appl. Math. Finance 20:512–547, 2013). In order to support our models, we analyse nine months of tick-by-tick data on 13 European stocks from the NASDAQ OMX exchange. We show that order book imbalance is a predictor of the future price move and has some mean-reverting properties. From this data, we show that market participants, especially high-frequency traders, use this signal in their trading strategies.

This paper examines short-term price reactions after one-day abnormal price changes and whether they create exploitable profit opportunities in various financial markets. Statistical tests confirm the presence of overreactions and also suggest that there is an “inertia anomaly”, i.e. after an overreaction day prices tend to move in the same direction for some time. A trading robot approach is then used to test two trading strategies aimed at exploiting the detected anomalies to make abnormal profits. The results suggest that a strategy based on counter-movements after overreactions does not generate profits in the FOREX and the commodity markets, but in some cases it can be profitable in the US stock market. By contrast, a strategy exploiting the “inertia anomaly” produces profits in the case of the FOREX and the commodity markets, but not in the case of the US stock market.