Trading Strategy

Aligning Multilingual News for Stock Return Prediction ArXiv ID: 2510.19203 “View on arXiv” Authors: Yuntao Wu, Lynn Tao, Ing-Haw Cheng, Charles Martineau, Yoshio Nozawa, John Hull, Andreas Veneris Abstract News spreads rapidly across languages and regions, but translations may lose subtle nuances. We propose a method to align sentences in multilingual news articles using optimal transport, identifying semantically similar content across languages. We apply this method to align more than 140,000 pairs of Bloomberg English and Japanese news articles covering around 3500 stocks in Tokyo exchange over 2012-2024. Aligned sentences are sparser, more interpretable, and exhibit higher semantic similarity. Return scores constructed from aligned sentences show stronger correlations with realized stock returns, and long-short trading strategies based on these alignments achieve 10% higher Sharpe ratios than analyzing the full text sample. ...

Language Model Guided Reinforcement Learning in Quantitative Trading ArXiv ID: 2508.02366 “View on arXiv” Authors: Adam Darmanin, Vince Vella Abstract 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 reasoning and multi-modal signal interpretation when guided by well-structured prompts. This paper proposes a hybrid framework in which LLMs generate high-level trading strategies to guide RL agents. We evaluate (i) the economic rationale of LLM-generated strategies through expert review, and (ii) the performance of LLM-guided agents against unguided RL baselines using Sharpe Ratio (SR) and Maximum Drawdown (MDD). Empirical results indicate that LLM guidance improves both return and risk metrics relative to standard RL. ...

To Trade or Not to Trade: An Agentic Approach to Estimating Market Risk Improves Trading Decisions ArXiv ID: 2507.08584 “View on arXiv” Authors: Dimitrios Emmanoulopoulos, Ollie Olby, Justin Lyon, Namid R. Stillman Abstract Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in agentic frameworks, in which prompts trigger complex tool-based analysis in pursuit of a goal. While these frameworks have shown promise across multiple domains including in finance, they typically lack a principled model-building step, relying instead on sentiment- or trend-based analysis. We address this gap by developing an agentic system that uses LLMs to iteratively discover stochastic differential equations for financial time series. These models generate risk metrics which inform daily trading decisions. We evaluate our system in both traditional backtests and using a market simulator, which introduces synthetic but causally plausible price paths and news events. We find that model-informed trading strategies outperform standard LLM-based agents, improving Sharpe ratios across multiple equities. Our results show that combining LLMs with agentic model discovery enhances market risk estimation and enables more profitable trading decisions. ...

Can Artificial Intelligence Trade the Stock Market? ArXiv ID: 2506.04658 “View on arXiv” Authors: Jędrzej Maskiewicz, Paweł Sakowski Abstract The paper explores the use of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) in stock market trading, focusing on two algorithms: Double Deep Q-Network (DDQN) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and compares them with Buy and Hold benchmark. It evaluates these algorithms across three currency pairs, the S&P 500 index and Bitcoin, on the daily data in the period of 2019-2023. The results demonstrate DRL’s effectiveness in trading and its ability to manage risk by strategically avoiding trades in unfavorable conditions, providing a substantial edge over classical approaches, based on supervised learning in terms of risk-adjusted returns. ...

Hunting Tomorrow’s Leaders: Using Machine Learning to Forecast S&P 500 Additions & Removal ArXiv ID: 2412.12539 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract This study applies machine learning to predict S&P 500 membership changes: key events that profoundly impact investor behavior and market dynamics. Quarterly data from WRDS datasets (2013 onwards) was used, incorporating features such as industry classification, financial data, market data, and corporate governance indicators. Using a Random Forest model, we achieved a test F1 score of 0.85, outperforming logistic regression and SVC models. This research not only showcases the power of machine learning for financial forecasting but also emphasizes model transparency through SHAP analysis and feature engineering. The model’s real world applicability is demonstrated with predicted changes for Q3 2023, such as the addition of Uber (UBER) and the removal of SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG). By incorporating these predictions into a trading strategy i.e. buying stocks announced for addition and shorting those marked for removal, we anticipate capturing alpha and enhancing investment decision making, offering valuable insights into index dynamics ...

Deep Learning-Based Electricity Price Forecast for Virtual Bidding in Wholesale Electricity Market ArXiv ID: 2412.00062 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract Virtual bidding plays an important role in two-settlement electric power markets, as it can reduce discrepancies between day-ahead and real-time markets. Renewable energy penetration increases volatility in electricity prices, making accurate forecasting critical for virtual bidders, reducing uncertainty and maximizing profits. This study presents a Transformer-based deep learning model to forecast the price spread between real-time and day-ahead electricity prices in the ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) market. The proposed model leverages various time-series features, including load forecasts, solar and wind generation forecasts, and temporal attributes. The model is trained under realistic constraints and validated using a walk-forward approach by updating the model every week. Based on the price spread prediction results, several trading strategies are proposed and the most effective strategy for maximizing cumulative profit under realistic market conditions is identified through backtesting. The results show that the strategy of trading only at the peak hour with a precision score of over 50% produces nearly consistent profit over the test period. The proposed method underscores the importance of an accurate electricity price forecasting model and introduces a new method of evaluating the price forecast model from a virtual bidder’s perspective, providing valuable insights for future research. ...

Financial News-Driven LLM Reinforcement Learning for Portfolio Management ArXiv ID: 2411.11059 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract 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 performance. Experiments were conducted on single-stock trading with Apple Inc. (AAPL) and portfolio trading with the ING Corporate Leaders Trust Series B (LEXCX). The sentiment-enhanced RL models demonstrated superior net worth and cumulative profit compared to RL models without sentiment and, in the portfolio experiment, outperformed the actual LEXCX portfolio’s buy-and-hold strategy. These results highlight the potential of incorporating qualitative market signals to improve decision-making, bridging the gap between quantitative and qualitative approaches in financial trading. ...

Composing Ensembles of Instrument-Model Pairs for Optimizing Profitability in Algorithmic Trading ArXiv ID: 2411.13559 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract Financial markets are nonlinear with complexity, where different types of assets are traded between buyers and sellers, each having a view to maximize their Return on Investment (ROI). Forecasting market trends is a challenging task since various factors like stock-specific news, company profiles, public sentiments, and global economic conditions influence them. This paper describes a daily price directional predictive system of financial instruments, addressing the difficulty of predicting short-term price movements. This paper will introduce the development of a novel trading system methodology by proposing a two-layer Composing Ensembles architecture, optimized through grid search, to predict whether the price will rise or fall the next day. This strategy was back-tested on a wide range of financial instruments and time frames, demonstrating an improvement of 20% over the benchmark, representing a standard investment strategy. ...

A Comparison between Financial and Gambling Markets ArXiv ID: 2409.13528 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract Financial and gambling markets are ostensibly similar and hence strategies from one could potentially be applied to the other. Financial markets have been extensively studied, resulting in numerous theorems and models, while gambling markets have received comparatively less attention and remain relatively undocumented. This study conducts a comprehensive comparison of both markets, focusing on trading rather than regulation. Five key aspects are examined: platform, product, procedure, participant and strategy. The findings reveal numerous similarities between these two markets. Financial exchanges resemble online betting platforms, such as Betfair, and some financial products, including stocks and options, share speculative traits with sports betting. We examine whether well-established models and strategies from financial markets could be applied to the gambling industry, which lacks comparable frameworks. For example, statistical arbitrage from financial markets has been effectively applied to gambling markets, particularly in peer-to-peer betting exchanges, where bettors exploit odds discrepancies for risk-free profits using quantitative models. Therefore, exploring the strategies and approaches used in both markets could lead to new opportunities for innovation and optimization in trading and betting activities. ...

Optimal position-building strategies in competition ArXiv ID: 2409.03586 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract This paper develops a mathematical framework for building a position in a stock over a fixed period of time while in competition with one or more other traders doing the same thing. We develop a game-theoretic framework that takes place in the space of trading strategies where action sets are trading strategies and traders try to devise best-response strategies to their adversaries. In this setup trading is guided by a desire to minimize the total cost of trading arising from a mixture of temporary and permanent market impact caused by the aggregate level of trading including the trader and the competition. We describe a notion of equilibrium strategies, show that they exist and provide closed-form solutions. ...