LiveTradeBench: Seeking Real-World Alpha with Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yu, Haofei, Li, Fenghai, You, Jiaxuan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909888069763072
author Yu, Haofei
Li, Fenghai
You, Jiaxuan
author_facet Yu, Haofei
Li, Fenghai
You, Jiaxuan
contents Large language models (LLMs) achieve strong performance across benchmarks--from knowledge quizzes and math reasoning to web-agent tasks--but these tests occur in static settings, lacking real dynamics and uncertainty. Consequently, they evaluate isolated reasoning or problem-solving rather than decision-making under uncertainty. To address this, we introduce LiveTradeBench, a live trading environment for evaluating LLM agents in realistic and evolving markets. LiveTradeBench follows three design principles: (i) Live data streaming of market prices and news, eliminating dependence on offline backtesting and preventing information leakage while capturing real-time uncertainty; (ii) a portfolio-management abstraction that extends control from single-asset actions to multi-asset allocation, integrating risk management and cross-asset reasoning; and (iii) multi-market evaluation across structurally distinct environments--U.S. stocks and Polymarket prediction markets--differing in volatility, liquidity, and information flow. At each step, an agent observes prices, news, and its portfolio, then outputs percentage allocations that balance risk and return. Using LiveTradeBench, we run 50-day live evaluations of 21 LLMs across families. Results show that (1) high LMArena scores do not imply superior trading outcomes; (2) models display distinct portfolio styles reflecting risk appetite and reasoning dynamics; and (3) some LLMs effectively leverage live signals to adapt decisions. These findings expose a gap between static evaluation and real-world competence, motivating benchmarks that test sequential decision making and consistency under live uncertainty.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_03628
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle LiveTradeBench: Seeking Real-World Alpha with Large Language Models
Yu, Haofei
Li, Fenghai
You, Jiaxuan
Trading and Market Microstructure
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Computation and Language
Large language models (LLMs) achieve strong performance across benchmarks--from knowledge quizzes and math reasoning to web-agent tasks--but these tests occur in static settings, lacking real dynamics and uncertainty. Consequently, they evaluate isolated reasoning or problem-solving rather than decision-making under uncertainty. To address this, we introduce LiveTradeBench, a live trading environment for evaluating LLM agents in realistic and evolving markets. LiveTradeBench follows three design principles: (i) Live data streaming of market prices and news, eliminating dependence on offline backtesting and preventing information leakage while capturing real-time uncertainty; (ii) a portfolio-management abstraction that extends control from single-asset actions to multi-asset allocation, integrating risk management and cross-asset reasoning; and (iii) multi-market evaluation across structurally distinct environments--U.S. stocks and Polymarket prediction markets--differing in volatility, liquidity, and information flow. At each step, an agent observes prices, news, and its portfolio, then outputs percentage allocations that balance risk and return. Using LiveTradeBench, we run 50-day live evaluations of 21 LLMs across families. Results show that (1) high LMArena scores do not imply superior trading outcomes; (2) models display distinct portfolio styles reflecting risk appetite and reasoning dynamics; and (3) some LLMs effectively leverage live signals to adapt decisions. These findings expose a gap between static evaluation and real-world competence, motivating benchmarks that test sequential decision making and consistency under live uncertainty.
title LiveTradeBench: Seeking Real-World Alpha with Large Language Models
topic Trading and Market Microstructure
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03628