Portfolio allocation using XCS experts in technical analysis, market conditions and options market
Sor Ying Wong, Sonia Schulenburg · 2007
Schulenburg (2000) first proposed the idea to model different trader types by supplying different input information sets to a group of homogenous LCS agent. Gershoff (2006) investigated this idea further with XCS agent. This paper takes an extra step to build a trading system that not only adopts the multi-XCS agent idea, but also utilizes knowledge from discretization theory, modern portfolio theory, options theory and methods of combining multiple models. In comparison to previous work, a wider range of input data were used including technical analysis, general market conditions and options market conditions. Secondly, quantization of continuous financial series was achieved using entropy-based discretization and histogram equalization. Thirdly, subtle investment strategies can now be generated as a result of taking stock price magnitude into account. Finally, multiple agents' predictions were combined using a variant of stacking. Empirical results show the best-performing XCS agents always outclass benchmark agents in every stock examined. Variance is reduced after combining predictions from multiple models. The technical analysis XCS agent was able to replicate a well known technical trading rule widely used in the 60s.