arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2025
This paper proposes a reinforcement learning--based framework for cryptocurrency portfolio management using the Soft Actor--Critic (SAC) and Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) algorithms. Traditional portfolio optimization methods often struggle to adapt to the highly volatile and nonlinear dynamics of cryptocurrency markets. To address this, we design an agent that learns continuous trading actions directly f…
Kamal Paykan
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2019
In this thesis, we develop a comprehensive account of the expressive power, modelling efficiency, and performance advantages of so-called trading agents (i.e., Deep Soft Recurrent Q-Network (DSRQN) and Mixture of Score Machines (MSM)), based on both traditional system identification (model-based approach) as well as on context-independent agents (model-free approach). The analysis provides conclusive support for the …
Angelos Filos
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2026
This study develops and evaluates a deep reinforcement learning framework for dynamic portfolio allocation across global equity markets. The Soft Actor-Critic algorithm is used to learn continuous portfolio weights within a Markov Decision Process, incorporating transaction costs, turnover penalties, and diversification constraints into the reward function. Five model configurations are compared, varying in reward fo…
Kamil Kashif, Robert Ślepaczuk
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2024
This study presents a Reinforcement Learning (RL)-based portfolio management model tailored for high-risk environments, addressing the limitations of traditional RL models and exploiting market opportunities through two-sided transactions and lending. Our approach integrates a new environmental formulation with a Profit and Loss (PnL)-based reward function, enhancing the RL agent's ability in downside risk management…
Ali Habibnia, Mahdi Soltanzadeh
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2022
Active portfolio management tries to incorporate any source of meaningful information into the asset selection process. In this contribution we consider qualitative views specified as total orders of the expected asset returns and discuss two different approaches for incorporating this input in a mean-variance portfolio optimization model. In the robust optimization approach we first compute a posterior expectation o…
Eranda Çela, Stephan Hafner, Roland Mestel, Ulrich Pferschy
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2026
Private credit assets under management grew from \$158 billion in 2010 to nearly \$2 trillion globally by mid-2024, fundamentally reshaping corporate credit markets. This paper provides a systematic survey of the academic literature on private credit, organizing theory and evidence around four questions: why the market has grown so rapidly, how direct lender technology differs from bank lending, what risk-adjusted re…
Jiacheng Zou
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2026
We test whether large language models (LLMs) add value in commodity portfolio construction when the information set and implementation rules are held fixed across strategies. A Hawkish Agent (inflation-tightening prior), a Dovish Agent (growth-easing prior), a Debate Agent, and a deterministic z-score Rule Agent each receive identical FRED macro z-scores and route their tilt signals through the same portfolio engine.…
Yiqing Wang, Dehao Dai, Ding Ma, Kerui Geng
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2025
We introduce a simple portfolio optimization strategy using ESG data with the Black-Litterman allocation framework. ESG scores are used as a bias for Stein shrinkage estimation of equilibrium risk premiums used in assigning Black-Litterman asset weights. Assets are modeled as multivariate affine normal-inverse Gaussian variables using CVaR as a risk measure. This strategy, though very simple, when employed with a sof…
Aviv Alpern, Svetlozar Rachev
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2025
Accurate prediction of financial market volatility is critical for risk management, derivatives pricing, and investment strategy. In this study, we propose a multitude of regime-switching methods to improve the prediction of S&P 500 volatility by capturing structural changes in the market across time. We use eleven years of SPX data, from May 1st, 2014 to May 27th, 2025, to compute daily realized volatility (RV) from…
Ava C. Blake, Nivika A. Gandhi, Anurag R. Jakkula
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2025
In this paper, we study the continuous-time multi-asset mean-variance (MV) portfolio selection using a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm, specifically the soft actor-critic (SAC) algorithm, in the time-varying financial market. A family of Gaussian portfolio selections is derived, and a policy iteration process is crafted to learn the optimal exploratory portfolio selection. We prove the convergence of the policy…
Yu Li, Yuhan Wu, Shuhua Zhang
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2022
Deep Reinforcement Learning solutions have been applied to different control problems with outperforming and promising results. In this research work we have applied Proximal Policy Optimization, Soft Actor-Critic and Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning to strategy design problem of three cryptocurrency markets. Our input data includes price data and technical indicators. We have implemented a Gym environment b…
Mohsen Asgari, Seyed Hossein Khasteh
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2022
In recent years, many practitioners in quantitative finance have attempted to use Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to build better quantitative trading (QT) strategies. Nevertheless, many existing studies fail to address several serious challenges, such as the non-stationary financial environment and the bias and variance trade-off when applying DRL in the real financial market. In this work, we proposed Safe-FinRL,…
Zitao Song, Xuyang Jin, Chenliang Li
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2022
Traditional knowledge distillation in classification problems transfers the knowledge via class correlations in the soft label produced by teacher models, which are not available in regression problems like stock trading volume prediction. To remedy this, we present a novel distillation framework for training a light-weight student model to perform trading volume prediction given historical transaction data. Specific…
Lei Li, Zhiyuan Zhang, Ruihan Bao, Keiko Harimoto, Xu Sun
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2021
We present an algorithm for the calibration of local volatility from market option prices through deep self-consistent learning, by approximating both market option prices and local volatility using deep neural networks. Our method uses the initial-boundary value problem of the underlying Dupire's partial differential equation solved by the parameterized option prices to bring corrections to the parameterization in a…
Zhe Wang, Ameir Shaa, Nicolas Privault, Claude Guet
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2019
We study soft persistence (existence in subsequent temporal layers of motifs from the initial layer) of motif structures in Triangulated Maximally Filtered Graphs (TMFG) generated from time-varying Kendall correlation matrices computed from stock prices log-returns over rolling windows with exponential smoothing. We observe long-memory processes in these structures in the form of power law decays in the number of per…
Jeremy Turiel, Tomaso Aste
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2019
We present a neural network (NN) approach to fit and predict implied volatility surfaces (IVSs). Atypically to standard NN applications, financial industry practitioners use such models equally to replicate market prices and to value other financial instruments. In other words, low training losses are as important as generalization capabilities. Importantly, IVS models need to generate realistic arbitrage-free option…
Damien Ackerer, Natasa Tagasovska, Thibault Vatter
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2014
Investors who optimize their portfolios under any of the coherent risk measures are naturally led to regularized portfolio optimization when they take into account the impact their trades make on the market. We show here that the impact function determines which regularizer is used. We also show that any regularizer based on the norm $L_p$ with $p>1$ makes the sensitivity of coherent risk measures to estimation error…
Fabio Caccioli, Imre Kondor, Matteo Marsili, Susanne Still
arXiv · arXiv q-fin · 2013
Small Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) face many obstacles when they try to access credit market. These obstacles are increased if the SMEs are innovative. In this case, financial data are insufficient or even not reliable. Thus, when building a judgemental rating model, mainly based on qualitative criteria (soft information), it is very important to finance SMEs' activities. Until now, there isn't a multicriteria cre…
Silvia Angilella, Sebastiano Mazzù