FMC² Research Collection
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- PublicationU.S. core inflation : a wavelet analysis(University College Dublin. School of Business. Centre for Financial Markets, 2006-09-10)
; This paper proposes the use of wavelet methods to estimate U.S. core inflation. It explains wavelet methods and suggests they are ideally suited to this task. Comparisons are made with traditional CPI-based and regression-based measures for their performance in following trend inflation and predicting future inflation. Results suggest that wavelet-based measures perform better, and sometimes much better, than the Traditional approaches. These results suggest that wavelet methods are a promising avenue for future research on core inflation.355 - PublicationTime varying risk aversion : an application to energy hedging(2009)
; Risk aversion is a key element of utility maximizing hedge strategies; however, it has typically been assigned an arbitrary value in the literature. This paper instead applies a GARCH-in-Mean (GARCH-M) model to estimate a time-varying measure of risk aversion that is based on the observed risk preferences of energy hedging market participants. The resulting estimates are applied to derive explicit risk aversion based optimal hedge strategies for both short and long hedgers. Out-of-sample results are also presented based on a unique approach that allows us to forecast risk aversion, thereby estimating hedge strategies that address the potential future needs of energy hedgers. We find that the risk aversion based hedges differ significantly from simpler OLS hedges. When implemented in-sample, risk aversion hedges for short hedgers outperform the OLS hedge ratio in a utility based comparison.969 - PublicationHousing risk and return : evidence from a housing asset-pricing model(University College Dublin. Geary Institute, 2009-11)
; ; This paper investigates the risk-return relationship in determination of housing asset pricing. In so doing, the paper evaluates behavioral hypotheses advanced by Case and Shiller (1988, 2002, 2009) in studies of boom and post-boom housing markets. The paper specifies and tests a housing asset pricing model (H-CAPM), whereby expected returns of metropolitan-specific housing markets are equated to the market return, as represented by aggregate US house price time-series. We augment the model by examining the impact of additional risk factors including aggregate stock market returns, idiosyncratic risk, momentum, and Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) size effects. Further, we test the robustness of H-CAPM results to inclusion of controls for socioeconomic variables commonly represented in the house price literature, including changes in employment, affordability, and foreclosure incidence. Consistent with the traditional CAPM, we find a sizable and statistically significant influence of the market factor on MSA house price returns. Moreover we show that market betas have varied substantially over time. Also, we find the basic housing CAPM results are robust to the inclusion of other explanatory variables, including standard measures of risk and other housing market fundamentals. Additional tests of the validity of the model using the Fama-MacBeth framework offer further strong support of a positive risk and return relationship in housing. Our findings are supportive of the application of a housing investment risk-return framework in explanation of variation in metro-area cross-section and time-series US house price returns. Further, results strongly corroborate Case-Shiller behavioral research indicating the importance of speculative forces in the determination of U.S. housing returns.977 - PublicationHousing risk and return : evidence from a housing asset-pricing model(2009-11)
; ; This paper investigates the risk-return relationship in determination of housing asset pricing. In so doing, the paper evaluates behavioral hypotheses advanced by Case and Shiller (1988, 2002, 2009) in studies of boom and post-boom housing markets. The paper specifies and tests a housing asset pricing model (H-CAPM), whereby expected returns of metropolitan-specific housing markets are equated to the market return, as represented by aggregate US house price time-series. We augment the model by examining the impact of additional risk factors including aggregate stock market returns, idiosyncratic risk, momentum, and Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) size effects. Further, we test the robustness of H-CAPM results to inclusion of controls for socioeconomic variables commonly represented in the house price literature, including changes in employment, affordability, and foreclosure incidence. Consistent with the traditional CAPM, we find a sizable and statistically significant influence of the market factor on MSA house price returns. Moreover we show that market betas have varied substantially over time. Also, we find the basic housing CAPM results are robust to the inclusion of other explanatory variables, including standard measures of risk and other housing market fundamentals. Additional tests of the validity of the model using the Fama-MacBeth framework offer further strong support of a positive risk and return relationship in housing. Our findings are supportive of the application of a housing investment risk-return framework in explanation of variation in metro-area cross-section and time-series US house price returns. Further, results strongly corroborate Case-Shiller behavioral research indicating the importance of speculative forces in the determination of U.S. housing returns.1675 - PublicationEvolving dynamic trade execution strategies using grammatical evolutionAlthough there is a plentiful literature on the use of evolutionary methodologies for the trading of financial assets, little attention has been paid to potential use of these methods for efficient trade execution. Trade execution is concerned with the actual mechanics of buying or selling the desired amount of a financial instrument of interest. Grammatical Evolution (GE) is an evolutionary automatic programming methodology which can be used to evolve rule sets. In this paper we use a GE algorithm to discover dynamic, efficient, trade execution strategies which adapt to changing market conditions. The strategies are tested in an artificial limit order market. GE was found to be able to evolve quality trade execution strategies which are highly competitive with two benchmark trade execution strategies.
2511Scopus© Citations 6 - PublicationEvolving efficient limit order strategy using grammatical evolutionTrade execution is concerned with the actual mechanics of buying or selling the desired amount of a financial instrument of interest. A practical problem in trade execution is how to trade a large order as efficiently as possible. A trade execution strategy is designed for this task to minimize total trade cost. Grammatical Evolution (GE) is an evolutionary automatic programming methodology which can be used to evolve rule sets. It has been proved successfully to be able to evolve quality trade execution strategies in our previous work. In this paper, the previous work is extended by adopting two different limit order lifetimes and three benchmark limit order strategies. GE is used to evolve efficient limit order strategies which can determine the aggressiveness levels of limit orders. We found that GE evolved limit order strategies were highly competitive against three benchmark strategies and the limit order strategies with long-term lifetime performed better than those with short-term lifetime.
5103Scopus© Citations 3 - PublicationEvolutionary computation and trade executionAlthough there is a plentiful literature on the use of evolutionary methodologies for the trading of Financial assets, little attention has been paid to the issue of efficient trade execution. Trade execution is concerned with the actual mechanics of buying or selling the desired amount of a financial instrument of interest. This chapter introduces the concept of trade execution and outlines the limited prior work applying evolutionary computing methods for this task. Furthermore, we build an Agent-based Artificial Stock Market and apply a Genetic Algorithm to evolve an efficient trade execution strategy. Finally, we suggest a number of opportunities for future research.
4909Scopus© Citations 1 - PublicationEvolving trading rule-based policiesTrading-rule representation is an important factor to consider when designing a quantitative trading system. This study implements a trading strategy as a rule-based policy. The result is an intuitive human-readable format which allows for seamless integration of domain knowledge. The components of a policy are specified and represented as a set of rewrite rules in a context-free grammar. These rewrite rules define how the components can be legally assembled. Thus, strategies derived from the grammar are well-formed, domain-specific, solutions. A grammar-based Evolutionary Algorithm, Grammatical Evolution (GE), is then employed to automatically evolve intra-day trading strategies for the U.S. Stock Market. The GE methodology managed to discover profitable rules with realistic transaction costs included. The paper concludes with a number of suggestions for future work.
841Scopus© Citations 3 - PublicationIntra-day seasonality in foreign exchange market transactionsThis paper examines the intra-day seasonality of transacted limit and market orders in the DEM/USD foreign exchange market. Empirical analysis of completed transactions data based on the Dealing 2000-2 electronic inter-dealer broking system indicates significant evidence of intraday seasonality in returns and return volatilities under usual market conditions. Moreover, analysis of realised tail outcomes supports seasonality for extraordinary market conditions across the trading day.
511Scopus© Citations 4 - PublicationU.S. core inflation : a wavelet analysisThis paper proposes the use of wavelet methods to estimate U.S. core inflation. It explains wavelet methods and suggests they are ideally suited to this task. Comparisons are made with traditional CPI-based and regression-based measures for their performance in following trend inflation and predicting future inflation. Results suggest that wavelet-based measures perform better, and sometimes much better, than the traditional approaches. These results suggest that wavelet methods are a promising avenue for future research on core inflation.
Scopus© Citations 9 725 - PublicationObjective function design in a grammatical evolutionary trading systemDesigning a suitable objective function is an essential step in successfully applying an evolutionary algorithm to a problem. In this study we apply a grammar-based Genetic Programming algorithm called Grammatical Evolution to the problem of trading model induction and carry out a number of experiments to assess the effect of objective function design on the trading characteristics of the evolved strategies. The paper concludes with in and out-of-sample results, and indicates a number of avenues of future work.
1790Scopus© Citations 5 - PublicationIdentifying online credit card fraud using artificial immune systemsSignificant payment flows now take place on-line, giving rise to a requirement for efficient and effective systems for the detection of credit card fraud. A particular aspect of this problem is that it is highly dynamic, as fraudsters continually adapt their strategies in response to the increasing sophistication of detection systems. Hence, system training by exposure to examples of previous examples of fraudulent transactions can lead to fraud detection systems which are susceptible to new patterns of fraudulent transactions. The nature of the problem suggests that Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) may have particular utility for inclusion in fraud detection systems as AIS can be constructed which can flag ‘non standard’ transactions without having seen examples of all possible such transactions during training of the algorithm. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) for credit card fraud detection using a large dataset obtained from an on-line retailer. Three AIS algorithms were implemented and their performance was benchmarked against a logistic regression model. The results suggest that AIS algorithms have potential for inclusion in fraud detection systems but that further work is required to realize their full potential in this domain.
10388Scopus© Citations 30 - PublicationThe syntax of stock selection : grammatical evolution of a stock picking modelA significant problem in the area of stock selection is that of identifying the factors that affect a security’s return. While modern portfolio theory suggests a linear multi-factor model in the form of Arbitrage Pricing Theory it does not suggest the identity, or even the number, of risk factors in the model. Candidate factors for inclusion in a fundamental model can include hundreds of data points for each firm and with thousands of firms in the fund manager’s selection universe the model specification problem encompasses a large, computationally intense search space. Grammatical Evolution (GE) is a form of evolutionary computing that has been used successfully in model induction problems involving large search spaces. GE is applied to evolve a stock selection model with a customized mapping process developed specifically to enhance the performance of evolutionary operators for this problem. Stock selection models are rated using fitness functions commonly employed in asset management; the information coefficient and the inter-quantile return spread. The findings of the paper indicate that evolutionary computing is an excellent tool for the development of stock picking models.
2933Scopus© Citations 2 - PublicationSwarm intelligent optimisation based stochastic programming model for dynamic asset allocationAsset allocation is critical for the portfolio management process. In this paper, we solve a dynamic asset allocation problem through a multiperiod stochastic programming model. The objective is to maximise the expected utility of wealth at the end of the planning periods. To improve the optimisation result of the model, we employ swarm intelligent optimisers, the Bacterial Foraging Optimisation (BFO) algorithm and the Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) algorithm. A hybrid optimiser using the Bacterial Foraging Optimisation algorithm for initialisation and the Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) for local search is also suggested. The results are compared with the standard-alone SQP and the canonical Genetic Algorithm. The numerical results suggest the hybrid method provides better result, with improved accuracy, stability and computing speed than using BFO, PSO, GA, or SQP alone.
2509Scopus© Citations 3 - PublicationEvolutionary learning of technical trading rules without data-mining biasIn this paper we investigate the profitability of evolved technical trading rules when controlling for data-mining bias. For the first time in the evolutionary computation literature, a comprehensive test for a rule’s statistical significance using Hansen’s Superior Predictive Ability is explicitly taken into account in the fitness function, and multi-objective evolutionary optimisation is employed to drive the search towards individual rules with better generalisation abilities. Empirical results on a spot foreign-exchange market index suggest that increased out-of-sample performance can be obtained after accounting for data-mining bias effects in a multi-objective fitness function, as compared to a single-criterion fitness measure that considers solely the average return.
2736Scopus© Citations 14 - PublicationIntegration and contagion in US housing markets(2011)
; ; This paper explores integration and contagion among US metropolitan housing markets. The analysis applies Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) house price repeat sales indexes from 384 metropolitan areas to estimate a multi-factor model of U.S. housing market integration. It then identifies statistical jumps in metropolitan house price returns as well as MSA contemporaneous and lagged jump correlations. Finally, the paper evaluates contagion in housing markets via parametric assessment of MSA house price spatial dynamics. A R-squared measure reveals an upward trend in MSA housing market integration over the 2000s to approximately .83 in 2010. Among California MSAs, the trend was especially pronounced, as average integration increased from about .55 in 1997 to close to .95 in 2008! The 2000s bubble period similarly was characterized by elevated incidence of statistical jumps in housing returns. Again, jump incidence and MSA jump correlations were especially high in California. Analysis of contagion among California markets indicates that house price returns in San Francisco often led those of surrounding communities; in contrast, southern California MSA house price returns appeared to move largely in lock step. The high levels of housing market integration evidenced in the analysis suggest limited investor opportunity to diversify away MSA-specific housing risk. Further, results suggest that macro and policy shocks propagate through a large number of MSA housing markets. Research findings are relevant to all market participants, including institutional investors in MBS as well as those who regulate housing, the housing GSEs, mortgage lenders, and related financial institutions.503 - PublicationAn evolutionary algorithmic investigation of US corporate payout policy determinationThis Chapter examines cash dividends and share repurchases in the United States during the period 1990 to 2008. In the extant literature a variety of classical statistical methodologies have been adopted, foremost among these is the method of panel regression modelling. Instead, in this Chapter, we have informed our model specifications and our coefficient estimates using a genetic program. Our model captures effects from a wide range of pertinent proxy variables related to the agency cost-based life cycle theory, the signalling theory and the catering theory of corporate payout policy determination. In line with the extant literature, our findings indicate the predominant importance of the agency-cost based life cycle theory. The adopted evolutionary algorithm approach also provides important new insights concerning the influence of firm size, the concentration of firm ownership and cash flow uncertainty with respect to corporate payout policy determination in the United States.
594 - PublicationEarly stopping criteria to counteract overfitting in genetic programmingEarly stopping typically stops training the first time validation fitness disimproves. This may not be the best strategy given that validation fitness can subsequently increase or decrease. We examine the effects of stopping subsequent to the first disimprovement in validation fitness, on symbolic regression problems. Stopping points are determined using criteria which measure generalisation loss and training progress. Results suggest that these criteria can improve the generalistion ability of symbolic regression functions evolved using Grammar-based GP.
837Scopus© Citations 7 - PublicationTackling overfitting in evolutionary-driven financial model inductionThis chapter explores the issue of overfitting in grammar-based Genetic Programming. Tools such as Genetic Programming are well suited to problems in finance where we seek to learn or induce a model from data. Models that overfit the data upon which they are trained prevent model generalisation, which is an important goal of learning algorithms. Early stopping is a technique that is frequently used to counteract overfitting, but this technique often fails to identify the optimal point at which to stop training. In this chapter, we implement four classes of stopping criteria, which attempt to stop training when the generalisation of the evolved model is maximised. We show promising results using, in particular, one novel class of criteria, which measured the correlation between the training and validation fitness at each generation. These criteria determined whether or not to stop training depending on the measurement of this correlation - they had a high probability of being the best among a suite of potential criteria to be used during a run. This meant that they often found the lowest validation set error for the entire run faster than other criteria.
586Scopus© Citations 6 - PublicationDynamic trade execution : a grammatical evolution approachTrade execution is concerned with the actual mechanics of buying or selling the desired amount of a financial instrument. Investors wishing to execute large orders face a tradeoff between market impact and opportunity cost. Trade execution strategies are designed to balance out these costs, thereby minimising total trading cost. Despite the importance of optimising the trade execution process, this is difficult to do in practice due to the dynamic nature of markets and due to our imperfect understanding of them. In this paper, we adopt a novel approach, combining an evolutionary methodology whereby we evolve high-quality trade execution strategies, with an agent-based artificial stock market, wherein the evolved strategies are tested. The evolved strategies are found to outperform a series of benchmark strategies and several avenues are suggested for future work.
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