Evaluation of Reinforcement Learning Techniques for Trading on a Diverse Portfolio

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Khare, Ishan S., Martheswaran, Tarun K., Dassanaike-Perera, Akshana
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Khare, Ishan S.
Martheswaran, Tarun K.
Dassanaike-Perera, Akshana
author_facet Khare, Ishan S.
Martheswaran, Tarun K.
Dassanaike-Perera, Akshana
contents This work seeks to answer key research questions regarding the viability of reinforcement learning over the S&P 500 index. The on-policy techniques of Value Iteration (VI) and State-action-reward-state-action (SARSA) are implemented along with the off-policy technique of Q-Learning. The models are trained and tested on a dataset comprising multiple years of stock market data from 2000-2023. The analysis presents the results and findings from training and testing the models using two different time periods: one including the COVID-19 pandemic years and one excluding them. The results indicate that including market data from the COVID-19 period in the training dataset leads to superior performance compared to the baseline strategies. During testing, the on-policy approaches (VI and SARSA) outperform Q-learning, highlighting the influence of bias-variance tradeoff and the generalization capabilities of simpler policies. However, it is noted that the performance of Q-learning may vary depending on the stability of future market conditions. Future work is suggested, including experiments with updated Q-learning policies during testing and trading diverse individual stocks. Additionally, the exploration of alternative economic indicators for training the models is proposed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_03202
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Evaluation of Reinforcement Learning Techniques for Trading on a Diverse Portfolio
Khare, Ishan S.
Martheswaran, Tarun K.
Dassanaike-Perera, Akshana
Trading and Market Microstructure
Machine Learning
This work seeks to answer key research questions regarding the viability of reinforcement learning over the S&P 500 index. The on-policy techniques of Value Iteration (VI) and State-action-reward-state-action (SARSA) are implemented along with the off-policy technique of Q-Learning. The models are trained and tested on a dataset comprising multiple years of stock market data from 2000-2023. The analysis presents the results and findings from training and testing the models using two different time periods: one including the COVID-19 pandemic years and one excluding them. The results indicate that including market data from the COVID-19 period in the training dataset leads to superior performance compared to the baseline strategies. During testing, the on-policy approaches (VI and SARSA) outperform Q-learning, highlighting the influence of bias-variance tradeoff and the generalization capabilities of simpler policies. However, it is noted that the performance of Q-learning may vary depending on the stability of future market conditions. Future work is suggested, including experiments with updated Q-learning policies during testing and trading diverse individual stocks. Additionally, the exploration of alternative economic indicators for training the models is proposed.
title Evaluation of Reinforcement Learning Techniques for Trading on a Diverse Portfolio
topic Trading and Market Microstructure
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.03202