Reinforcement Learning

In this paper, we focus on finding the optimal hedging strategy of a credit index option using reinforcement learning. We take a practical approach, where the focus is on realism i.e. discrete time, transaction costs; even testing our policy on real market data. We apply a state of the art algorithm

We evaluate benchmark deep reinforcement learning algorithms on the task of portfolio optimisation using simulated data. The simulator to generate the data is based on correlated geometric Brownian motion with the Bertsimas-Lo market impact model. Using the Kelly criterion (log utility) as the objec

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 t

Optimized trade execution is to sell (or buy) a given amount of assets in a given time with the lowest possible trading cost. Recently, reinforcement learning (RL) has been applied to optimized trade execution to learn smarter policies from market data. However, we find that many existing RL methods

Portfolio Management is the process of overseeing a group of investments, referred to as a portfolio, with the objective of achieving predetermined investment goals. Portfolio optimization is a key component that involves allocating the portfolio assets so as to maximize returns while minimizing ris

In this paper, we present an extended exploratory continuous-time mean-variance framework for portfolio management. Our strategy involves a new clustering method based on simulated annealing, which allows for more practical asset selection. Additionally, we consider past wealth evolution when constr

Modern portfolio management increasingly demands a balance between traditional risk-adjusted returns and strict Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) mandates. Current Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches typically optimize for a single ESG provider, neglecting the significant divergence in

We study reinforcement learning for controlled diffusion processes with unbounded continuous state spaces, bounded continuous actions, and polynomially growing rewards: settings that arise naturally in finance, economics, and operations research. To overcome the challenges of continuous and high-dim

We present ABIDES-MARL, a framework that combines a new multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) methodology with a new realistic limit-order-book (LOB) simulation system to study equilibrium behavior in complex financial market games. The system extends ABIDES-Gym by decoupling state collection fr

Agent-based modelling (ABM) approaches for high-frequency financial markets are difficult to calibrate and validate, partly due to the large parameter space created by defining fixed agent policies. Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) enables more realistic agent behaviour and reduces the numb

Execution algorithms are vital to modern trading, they enable market participants to execute large orders while minimising market impact and transaction costs. As these algorithms grow more sophisticated, optimising them becomes increasingly challenging. In this work, we present a reinforcement lear

We propose a reinforcement learning (RL) framework under a broad class of risk objectives, characterized by convex scoring functions. This class covers many common risk measures, such as variance, Expected Shortfall, entropic Value-at-Risk, and mean-risk utility. To resolve the time-inconsistency is

The sequential nature of decision-making in financial asset trading aligns naturally with the reinforcement learning (RL) framework, making RL a common approach in this domain. However, the low signal-to-noise ratio in financial markets results in noisy estimates of environment components, including

Leveraging Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) in automated stock trading has shown promising results, yet its application faces significant challenges, including the curse of dimensionality, inertia in trading actions, and insufficient portfolio diversification. Addressing these challenges, we introd

Financial trading is a crucial component of the markets, informed by a multimodal information landscape encompassing news, prices, and Kline charts, and encompasses diverse tasks such as quantitative trading and high-frequency trading with various assets. While advanced AI techniques like deep learn

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are transforming the domain of Quantitative Trading (QT) through the deployment of advanced algorithms capable of sifting through extensive financial datasets to pinpoint lucrative investment openings. AI-driven models, particularly those employ

We introduce Onflow, a reinforcement learning technique that enables online optimization of portfolio allocation policies based on gradient flows. We devise dynamic allocations of an investment portfolio to maximize its expected log return while taking into account transaction fees. The portfolio al

The widespread confusion among investors regarding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) rankings assigned by rating agencies has underscored a critical issue in sustainable investing. To address this uncertainty, our research has devised methods that not only recognize this ambiguity but also

In recent years, deep reinforcement learning (Deep RL) has been successfully implemented as a smart agent in many systems such as complex games, self-driving cars, and chat-bots. One of the interesting use cases of Deep RL is its application as an automated stock trading agent. In general, any autom

We introduce Tail-Safe, a deployability-oriented framework for derivatives hedging that unifies distributional, risk-sensitive reinforcement learning with a white-box control-barrier-function (CBF) quadratic-program (QP) safety layer tailored to financial constraints. The learning component combines

The alignment of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) for autonomous software engineering is constrained by evaluator epistemic uncertainty. Current paradigms, such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and AI Feedback (RLAIF), frequently induce model sycophancy, while execution-based environmen

The emergence of price comparison websites (PCWs) has presented insurers with unique challenges in formulating effective pricing strategies. Operating on PCWs requires insurers to strike a delicate balance between competitive premiums and profitability, amidst obstacles such as low historical conver

Agent-based models provide a constructive approach to studying emergent dynamics in life-like systems composed of interacting, adaptive agents. Financial markets serve as a canonical example of such systems, where collective price dynamics arise from individual decision-making. In this modeling trad

This paper studies the continuous-time reinforcement learning (RL) for optimal switching problems across multiple regimes. We consider a type of exploratory formulation under entropy regularization where the agent randomizes both the timing of switches and the selection of regimes through the genera

We study reinforcement learning (RL) on volatility surfaces through the lens of Scientific AI. We ask whether axiomatic no-arbitrage laws, imposed as soft penalties on a learned world model, can reliably align high-capacity RL agents, or mainly create Goodhart-style incentives to exploit model error

Myopic optimization (MO) outperforms reinforcement learning (RL) in portfolio management: RL yields lower or negative returns, higher variance, larger costs, heavier CVaR, lower profitability, and greater model risk. We model execution/liquidation frictions with mark-to-market accounting. Using Mall

Algorithmic trading requires short-term tactical decisions consistent with long-term financial objectives. Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been applied to such problems, but adoption is limited by myopic behaviour and opaque policies. Large Language Models (LLMs) offer complementary strategic reason

We present a Pontryagin-Guided Direct Policy Optimization (PG-DPO) framework for Merton’s portfolio problem, unifying modern neural-network-based policy parameterization with the adjoint viewpoint from Pontryagin’s maximum principle (PMP). Instead of approximating the value function (as done in deep

Recent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) methods in finance show promising outcomes. However, there is limited research examining the behavior of these DRL algorithms. This paper aims to investigate their tendencies towards holding or trading financial assets as well as purchase diversity. By analyz

On-chain data (metrics) of blockchain networks, akin to company fundamentals, provide crucial and comprehensive insights into the networks. Despite their informative nature, on-chain data have not been utilized in reinforcement learning (RL)-based systems for cryptocurrency (crypto) portfolio manage

Quantitative markets are characterized by swift dynamics and abundant uncertainties, making the pursuit of profit-driven stock trading actions inherently challenging. Within this context, reinforcement learning (RL), which operates on a reward-centric mechanism for optimal control, has surfaced as a

We consider the dynamics and the interactions of multiple reinforcement learning optimal execution trading agents interacting with a reactive Agent-Based Model (ABM) of a financial market in event time. The model represents a market ecology with 3-trophic levels represented by: optimal execution lea

Recent technological developments have changed the fundamental ways stock markets function, bringing regulatory instances to assess the benefits of these developments. In parallel, the ongoing machine learning revolution and its multiple applications to trading can now be used to design a next gener

Deep hedging uses recurrent neural networks to hedge financial products that cannot be fully hedged in incomplete markets. Previous work in this area focuses on minimizing some measure of quadratic hedging error by calculating pathwise gradients, but doing so requires large batch sizes and can make

Autonomous trading strategies have been a subject of research within the field of artificial intelligence (AI) for aconsiderable period. Various AI techniques have been explored to develop autonomous agents capable of trading financial assets. These approaches encompass traditional methods such as n

Straddle Option is a financial trading tool that explores volatility premiums in high-volatility markets without predicting price direction. Although deep reinforcement learning has emerged as a powerful approach to trading automation in financial markets, existing work mostly focused on predicting

We present a general computational framework for solving continuous-time financial market equilibria under minimal modeling assumptions while incorporating realistic financial frictions, such as trading costs, and supporting multiple interacting agents. Inspired by generative adversarial networks (G

Securities lending is an important part of the financial market structure, where agent lenders help long term institutional investors to lend out their securities to short sellers in exchange for a lending fee. Agent lenders within the market seek to optimize revenue by lending out securities at the

Reinforcement learning has been explored for many problems, from video games with deterministic environments to portfolio and operations management in which scenarios are stochastic; however, there have been few attempts to test these methods in banking problems. In this study, we sought to find and

An increasing share of energy is produced from renewable sources by many small producers. The efficiency of those sources is volatile and, to some extent, random, exacerbating the problem of energy market balancing. In many countries, this balancing is done on the day-ahead (DA) energy markets. This

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is an integral component of the blockchain ecosystem, enabling a range of financial activities through smart-contract-based protocols. Traditional DeFi governance typically involves manual parameter adjustments by protocol teams or token holder votes, and is thus prone t

Developing professional, structured reasoning on par with human financial analysts and traders remains a central challenge in AI for finance, where markets demand interpretability and trust. Traditional time-series models lack explainability, while LLMs face challenges in turning natural-language an

Sharpe Ratio (SR) is a critical parameter in characterizing financial time series as it jointly considers the reward and the volatility of any stock/portfolio through its variance. Deriving online algorithms for optimizing the SR is particularly challenging since even offline policies experience con

Explaining stock predictions is generally a difficult task for traditional non-generative deep learning models, where explanations are limited to visualizing the attention weights on important texts. Today, Large Language Models (LLMs) present a solution to this problem, given their known capabiliti

The published MLP-based DRL in finance has difficulties in learning the dynamics of the environment when the action scale increases. If the buying and selling increase to one thousand shares, the MLP agent will not be able to effectively adapt to the environment. To address this, we designed a CNN a

Introduced in the late 90s, the passport option gives its holder the right to trade in a market and receive any positive gain in the resulting traded account at maturity. Pricing the option amounts to solving a stochastic control problem that for $d>1$ risky assets remains an open problem. Even in a

The classical multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem involves a learner and a collection of K independent arms, each with its own ex ante unknown independent reward distribution. At each one of a finite number of rounds, the learner selects one arm and receives new information. The learner often faces an

This study addresses the low-volatility Chinese Public Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) market, proposing a large language model (LLM)-driven trading framework based on multi-agent collaboration. The system constructs four types of analytical agents-announcement, event, price momentum, and mark

This paper explores continuous-time and state-space optimal stopping problems from a reinforcement learning perspective. We begin by formulating the stopping problem using randomized stopping times, where the decision maker’s control is represented by the probability of stopping within a given time-

Reinforcement learning works best when the impact of the agent’s actions on its environment can be perfectly simulated or fully appraised from available data. Some systems are however both hard to simulate and very sensitive to small perturbations. An additional difficulty arises when a RL agent is

We consider two data-driven approaches to hedging, Reinforcement Learning and Deep Trajectory-based Stochastic Optimal Control, under a stepwise mean-variance objective. We compare their performance for a European call option in the presence of transaction costs under discrete trading schedules. We

High-frequency trading (HFT) is an investing strategy that continuously monitors market states and places bid and ask orders at millisecond speeds. Traditional HFT approaches fit models with historical data and assume that future market states follow similar patterns. This limits the effectiveness o

In response to Task II of the FinRL Challenge at ACM ICAIF 2024, this study proposes a novel prompt framework for fine-tuning large language models (LLM) with Reinforcement Learning from Market Feedback (RLMF). Our framework incorporates market-specific features and short-term price dynamics to gene

Recent advancements have underscored the potential of large language model (LLM)-based agents in financial decision-making. Despite this progress, the field currently encounters two main challenges: (1) the lack of a comprehensive LLM agent framework adaptable to a variety of financial tasks, and (2

In a reinforcement learning (RL) framework, we study the exploratory version of the continuous time expected utility (EU) maximization problem with a portfolio constraint that includes widely-used financial regulations such as short-selling constraints and borrowing prohibition. The optimal feedback

We develop a deep reinforcement learning (RL) framework for an optimal market-making (MM) trading problem, specifically focusing on price processes with semi-Markov and Hawkes Jump-Diffusion dynamics. We begin by discussing the basics of RL and the deep RL framework used, where we deployed the state

In a reinforcement learning (RL) setting, the agent’s optimal strategy heavily depends on her risk preferences and the underlying model dynamics of the training environment. These two aspects influence the agent’s ability to make well-informed and time-consistent decisions when facing testing enviro

We study continuous-time reinforcement learning (RL) for stochastic control in which system dynamics are governed by jump-diffusion processes. We formulate an entropy-regularized exploratory control problem with stochastic policies to capture the exploration–exploitation balance essential for RL. U

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are used to model a wide variety of applications ranging from game playing over robotics to finance. Their optimal policy typically maximizes the expected sum of rewards given at each step of the decision process. However, a large class of problems does not fit strai

Portfolio management issues have been extensively studied in the field of artificial intelligence in recent years, but existing deep learning-based quantitative trading methods have some areas where they could be improved. First of all, the prediction mode of stocks is singular; often, only one trad

We present our Agent-Based Market Microstructure Simulation (ABMMS), an Agent-Based Financial Market (ABFM) that captures much of the complexity present in the US National Market System for equities (NMS). Agent-Based models are a natural choice for understanding financial markets. Financial markets

This paper studies an infinite horizon optimal tracking portfolio problem using capital injection in incomplete market models. The benchmark process is modelled by a geometric Brownian motion with zero drift driven by some unhedgeable risk. The relaxed tracking formulation is adopted where the fund

The remarkable achievements and rapid advancements of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and GPT-4 have showcased their immense potential in quantitative investment. Traders can effectively leverage these LLMs to analyze financial news and predict stock returns accurately. However, integra

Solving portfolio management problems using deep reinforcement learning has been getting much attention in finance for a few years. We have proposed a new method using experts signals and historical price data to feed into our reinforcement learning framework. Although experts signals have been used

More and more stock trading strategies are constructed using deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms, but DRL methods originally widely used in the gaming community are not directly adaptable to financial data with low signal-to-noise ratios and unevenness, and thus suffer from performance shor

Reinforcement learning (RL) has emerged as a transformative approach for financial trading, enabling dynamic strategy optimization in complex markets. This study explores the integration of sentiment analysis, derived from large language models (LLMs), into RL frameworks to enhance trading performan

Statistical arbitrage is a prevalent trading strategy which takes advantage of mean reverse property of spread of paired stocks. Studies on this strategy often rely heavily on model assumption. In this study, we introduce an innovative model-free and reinforcement learning based framework for statis

Optimal Order Execution is a well-established problem in finance that pertains to the flawless execution of a trade (buy or sell) for a given volume within a specified time frame. This problem revolves around optimizing returns while minimizing risk, yet recent research predominantly focuses on addr

Large language models show promise for financial decision-making, yet deploying them as autonomous trading agents raises fundamental challenges: how to adapt instructions when rewards arrive late and obscured by market noise, how to synthesize heterogeneous information streams into coherent decision

Recently, reinforcement learning has achieved remarkable results in various domains, including robotics, games, natural language processing, and finance. In the financial domain, this approach has been applied to tasks such as portfolio optimization, where an agent continuously adjusts the allocatio

In this paper we introduce a multi-agent deep-learning method which trades in the Futures markets based on the US S&P 500 index. The method (referred to as Model A) is an innovation founded on existing well-established machine-learning models which sample market prices and associated derivatives in

Dynamic hedging is the practice of periodically transacting financial instruments to offset the risk caused by an investment or a liability. Dynamic hedging optimization can be framed as a sequential decision problem; thus, Reinforcement Learning (RL) models were recently proposed to tackle this tas

As intelligent trading agents based on reinforcement learning (RL) gain prevalence, it becomes more important to ensure that RL agents obey laws, regulations, and human behavioral expectations. There is substantial literature concerning the aversion of obvious catastrophes like crashing a helicopter

We study expected utility maximization problem with constant relative risk aversion utility function in a complete market under the reinforcement learning framework. To induce exploration, we introduce the Tsallis entropy regularizer, which generalizes the commonly used Shannon entropy. Unlike the c

In prior methods, it was observed that the application of Convolutional Neural Networks agent in Deep Reinforcement Learning to financial data resulted in an enhanced reward. In this study, a specific permutation was applied to the feature vector, thereby generating a CNN matrix that strategically p

This paper studies the continuous-time q-learning in mean-field jump-diffusion models when the population distribution is not directly observable. We propose the integrated q-function in decoupled form (decoupled Iq-function) from the representative agent’s perspective and establish its martingale c

We consider a class of learning problems in which an agent liquidates a risky asset while creating both transient price impact driven by an unknown convolution propagator and linear temporary price impact with an unknown parameter. We characterize the trader’s performance as maximization of a revenu

We propose a quantum machine learning framework for approximating solutions to high-dimensional parabolic partial differential equations (PDEs) that can be reformulated as backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs). In contrast to popular quantum-classical network hybrid approaches, this stu

This paper addresses the trade-off between internalisation and externalisation in the management of stochastic trade flows. We consider agents who must absorb flows and manage risk by deciding whether to warehouse it or hedge in the market, thereby incurring transaction costs and market impact. Unli

We investigate exploratory randomization for an extended linear-exponential-quadratic-Gaussian (LEQG) control problem in discrete time. This extended control problem is related to the structure of risk-sensitive investment management applications. We introduce exploration through a randomization of

The volatility fitting is one of the core problems in the equity derivatives business. Through a set of deterministic rules, the degrees of freedom in the implied volatility surface encoding (parametrization, density, diffusion) are defined. Whilst very effective, this approach widespread in the ind

This paper introduces a novel stochastic control framework to enhance the capabilities of automated investment managers, or robo-advisors, by accurately inferring clients’ investment preferences from past activities. Our approach leverages a continuous-time model that incorporates utility functions

While research of reinforcement learning applied to financial markets predominantly concentrates on finding optimal behaviours, it is worth to realize that the reinforcement learning returns $G_t$ and state value functions themselves are of interest and play a pivotal role in the evaluation of asset

This paper examines a trade execution game for two large traders in a generalized price impact model. We incorporate a stochastic and sequentially dependent factor that exogenously affects the market price into financial markets. Our model accounts for how strategic and environmental uncertainties a

Optimal execution is an important problem faced by any trader. Most solutions are based on the assumption of constant market impact, while liquidity is known to be dynamic. Moreover, models with time-varying liquidity typically assume that it is observable, despite the fact that, in reality, it is l

We extend the QLBS model by reformulating via considering a large trader whose transactions leave a permanent impact on the evolution of the exchange rate process and therefore affect the price of contingent claims on such processes. Through a hypothetical limit order book we quantify the exchange r

This thesis provides an overview of the recent advances in reinforcement learning in pricing and hedging financial instruments, with a primary focus on a detailed explanation of the Q-Learning Black Scholes approach, introduced by Halperin (2017). This reinforcement learning approach bridges the tra

Financial exchanges across the world use limit order books (LOBs) to process orders and match trades. For research purposes it is important to have large scale efficient simulators of LOB dynamics. LOB simulators have previously been implemented in the context of agent-based models (ABMs), reinforce

This work is about optimal order execution, where a large order is split into several small orders to maximize the implementation shortfall. Based on the diversity of cryptocurrency exchanges, we attempt to extract cross-exchange signals by aligning data from multiple exchanges for the first time. U

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the performances of three portfolio optimization approaches. Three approaches of portfolio optimization that are considered in this work are the mean-variance portfolio (MVP), hierarchical risk parity (HRP) portfolio, and reinforcement learning-based por

We present FinRL-X, a modular and deployment-consistent trading architecture that unifies data processing, strategy construction, backtesting, and broker execution under a weight-centric interface. While existing open-source platforms are often backtesting- or model-centric, they rarely provide syst

Applying reinforcement learning (RL) to foreign exchange (Forex) trading remains challenging because realistic environments, well-defined reward functions, and expressive action spaces must be satisfied simultaneously, yet many prior studies rely on simplified simulators, single scalar rewards, and

Recently, there are many trials to apply reinforcement learning in asset allocation for earning more stable profits. In this paper, we compare performance between several reinforcement learning algorithms - actor-only, actor-critic and PPO models. Furthermore, we analyze each models’ character and t

Reality may establish that an outcome occurred without identifying which evolving procedure produced it or why. This distinction matters in production ML systems whose code, configuration, and artifacts change while external feedback accumulates. We examine it in a human-directed, agent-engineered q

This paper introduces Anticipatory Reinforcement Learning (ARL), a novel framework designed to bridge the gap between non-Markovian decision processes and classical reinforcement learning architectures, specifically under the constraint of a single observed trajectory. In environments characterised

In this paper, we study an optimal dividend and capital-injection problem in a Cramér–Lundberg model where claim arrivals follow a Hawkes process, capturing clustering effects often observed in insurance portfolios. We establish key analytical properties of the value function and characterise the o

We propose and analyze a framework for discrete-time robust mean-field control problems under common noise uncertainty. In this framework, the mean-field interaction describes the collective behavior of infinitely many cooperative agents’ state and action, while the common noise – a random disturba

We consider a sequential decision-making setting where, at every round $t$, a market maker posts a bid price $B_t$ and an ask price $A_t$ to an incoming trader (the taker) with a private valuation for one unit of some asset. If the trader’s valuation is lower than the bid price, or higher than the a

This paper studies continuous-time risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) under the entropy-regularized, exploratory diffusion process formulation with the exponential-form objective. The risk-sensitive objective arises either as the agent’s risk attitude or as a distributionally robust approach

This paper comprehensively reviews the application of machine learning (ML) and AI in finance, specifically in the context of asset pricing. It starts by summarizing the traditional asset pricing models and examining their limitations in capturing the complexities of financial markets. It explores h