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A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for the Portfolio Management Problem (arxiv.org)
3 points by wslh on Apr 26, 2018 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: A learning system that reshuffles a fund among assets without financial formulas, using several judges and a memory of past holdings to pick each trade. In crypto backtests it beat every compared strategy, earning at least 4-fold returns in 50 days despite 0.25% fees.

Abstract · A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for the Financial Portfolio Management Problem

Financial portfolio management is the process of constant redistribution of a fund into different financial products. This paper presents a financial-model-free Reinforcement Learning framework to provide a deep machine learning solution to the portfolio management problem. The framework consists of the Ensemble of Identical Independent Evaluators (EIIE) topology, a Portfolio-Vector Memory (PVM), an Online Stochastic Batch Learning (OSBL) scheme, and a fully exploiting and explicit reward function. This framework is realized in three instants in this work with a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), a basic Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), and a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). They are, along with a number of recently reviewed or published portfolio-selection strategies, examined in three back-test experiments with a trading period of 30 minutes in a cryptocurrency market. Cryptocurrencies are electronic and decentralized alternatives to government-issued money, with Bitcoin as the best-known example of a cryptocurrency. All three instances of the framework monopolize the top three positions in all experiments, outdistancing other compared trading algorithms. Although with a high commission rate of 0.25% in the backtests, the framework is able to achieve at least 4-fold returns in 50 days.

Zhengyao Jiang, Dixing Xu, Jinjun Liang
arXiv:1706.10059 · q-fin.CP, cs.AI, q-fin.PM · submitted Jun 30, 2017 · updated Jul 16, 2017
abstract · pdf · html · 30 pages, 5 figures, submitting to JMLR

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Also discussed: Oct 2017 (2 points, 0 comments)