heuristics and artificial intelligence in finance and investment

To be or not to be is true - G. Boole

 

 

 

 

General optimisation/AI

Special topics
Neural networks
Genetic algorithms
Tabu search
Simulated annealing
This site is intended to be succinct rather than overwhelming. Only the best and most focused resources are included. Note that articles and references are normally linked to the actual documents, usually in PDF format. You can left-click to open in Adobe Acrobat or right-click to save while continuing to browse.

Email Franco Busetti with comments, ideas, suggested links and broken links.

Site map

General optimisation
/ AI resources
Special topics
Databases Neural networks Genetic algorithms Tabu search Simulated annealing
General articles Selected articles Selected articles Selected articles Selected articles
References References References References    -
Journals Journals Journals    -    -
Software Software Software Software Software
General optimisation Links Links    - Links
Conferences & courses
Education

General optimisation / AI resources

Databases
ResearchIndex  (formerly CiteSeer). Autonomously creates citation indexes of scientific literature. An excellent search tool for literature searches.

Economic Documents Search Useful for economics-orientated research information on-line. BibEc includes printed economics publications, not available on-line as downloadable files, while WoPEc includes information about documents that are available in electronic form.

MathSciNet. American Mathematical Society database. Superior database but subscription required.

to the top
General articles
Mathematical Optimisation An excellent overview of classical and heuristic optimisation techniques. Relatively easy reading.

new A superb collection of papers can be found on R-Quant's site. Areas covered include neural networks, CAPM, portfolio selection, general optimization, portfolio optimization, heuristic optimization, neural optimization, VAR, genetic algorithms, prospect theory, simulated annealing, technical analysis, tabu search, data patterns, game theory, bond pricing, multi-agent simulations, option pricing, monte carlo simulations, volatility estimations, time series analysis, swap pricing, fuzzy logic, arbitrage trading, fractals and chaos and term structure.

References
First, a list of selected, market-orientated Top References we have compiled. A huge time-saver, the distillation of many hours of hunting! Emphasis is on optimisation of investment problems, using heuristic methods, particularly genetic algorithms.

AI in Finance and Investment Gems This page, maintained by Robert R. Trippi (co-author with Lee, J.K. (1992) of State-of-the-Art Portfolio Selection. Chicago, Illinois. Probus. - a useful reference) is intended to provide short cuts for visiting places of interest to persons involved in applying AI to finance and investment problems.

In the same vein, a short bibliography of some of the Top Texts in these fields. Buy them at Amazon.

AI Worldwide Navigator. A huge meta-list of AI journals

Loads of FAQs on all AI topics from the Center for Scientific Computing (CSC), the Finnish national large-scale computing facility.

Greenberg’s page at the University of Colorado at Denver. A very long list of links, comprehensive but not very focused.

A Survey of Global Optimization Methods. Succinct taxonomy of optimisation techniques, with a couple of relevant references and software links.

Oasis library search - Unisa

to the top
Journals
new Scientific Publications of Science & Finance provides a list of outstanding scientific publications from science and finance researchers, tackling topics such as financial markets, options, risk management and portfolio optimisation.

new A very new journal which publishes articles that reflect the increasing use of quantitative methods in finance such as asset creation, pricing and risk management is Quantitative Finance. It also covers new developments such as agent-based modelling and evolutionary game theory.

Econophysics. Problems in economy and finance have recently started to attract the interest of statistical physicists. A fundamental problem is the existence or not of long-range power-law correlations in economic systems as well as the presence of economic cycles. For serious quants, such as statistical physicists.

Journal of Econometrics. You need to subscribe in order to download papers.

Informs Online. Database and general OR resource.

Journal of Heuristics. A forum for advancing the state-of-the-art in the theory and practical application of techniques for solving problems that cannot be solved exactly. Search engine can be used for general literature searches, but requires subscription.

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis The JFQA publishes theoretical and empirical research in financial economics. Topics include corporate finance, investments, capital and security markets, and quantitative methods of particular relevance to financial researchers.

Financial Analysts Journal Topical Index. A very pertinent resource, but when will they put the actual papers on the site for downloading?

to the top
Software
Lindo and Lingo are classical linear and nonlinear programming solvers from Lindo Systems. The demo versions are fully functional but have a restricted number of constraints and variables.

Exatech optimisation and financial software. The only commercial simulated annealing software I’ve found (but haven't tested).

Optimisation Software An interactive decision tree approach to selecting software. Fairly limited in scope.

The Neos Optimisation Software Guide run by Mittelmann and Spellucci, provides software sorted by type of problem to be solved, as well as benchmarks and test cases.

If you are willing to eschew commercial software and get your hands dirty, try The Stony Brook Algorithm Repository.

R-Quant is a software toolbox, which provides a researcher or quantitative investor with an advanced object-oriented data mining and analysis framework. NNs, GAs and the usual AI suspects are offered.

new Simtools is an add-in for Excel, providing statistical functions and procedures for doing Monte Carlo simulation and risk analysis in spreadsheets.

new Insight is a suite of Excel add-ins for quantitative analysis, along with its accompanying tutorial documentation, and provides Monte Carlo simulation, decision trees, queuing simulations, optimization, Markov chains, and forecasting.

to the top
.... and some helpful Excel add-ins
The Power Utility Pack trial provides all the utilities you've ever wanted for Excel from THE best Excel resource: J. Walker and Associates.

Operations Research Add-ins. Optimisation-related add-ins, from Paul Jensen at the University of Texas. Some good stuff.

Tired of manually adding labels to Excel scatter plots? Download here: Addlabel by Rob Bovey , which does it automatically. We've used it for ages without any problems.

to the top
General optimisation / AI links
Michael Trick’s Operation Research Page is arguably the premier OR site.

new The IFORS Tutor site provides many useful interactive tools for classic OR problems, and also has a dissertation database.

Operations Research Surf: another general and comprehensive AI site by Yves Rochat.

WORMS - World-Wide Web for Operations Research and Management Science - an Australian OR site.

The CMU Artificial Intelligence Repository contains 2 GB of public domain and freely distributable software, publications, and other materials of interest to AI researchers, educators, students, and practitioners.

Newsgroups: comp.ai.* e.g. comp.ai.alife, comp.ai.games, comp.ai.genetic, comp.ai.neural-nets, etc. These forums often provide swift and helpful guidance for specific problems.

new A brand-new resource is EU/ME (get it?), the EUropean chapter on MEtaheuristics. Their working group on metaheuristics intends to provide a forum for researchers in the field of metaheuristics and to provide its members with information on this topic.

new Financial Engineering News is a bi-monthly newspaper on financial engineering. It examines the use of financial instruments to solve problems and exploit opportunities, particularly with the use of quantitative methods and computer technology.

Yahoo AI. A good general starting point to various AI areas such as optimisation, fuzzy logic, inference and neural networks.

KD Nuggets. A guide to data mining, web mining, knowledge discovery and eCRM.

Kaisa Miettinen, a Finnish page of links. A slightly different slant to the usual, so it doesn't overlap too much with the others.

And for a competely different twist on things, Natural Language Processing provides tools which process qualitative data and produce qualitative information where quant stuff doesn’t work. For a quick introduction, read this paper.

to the top
...and some maths links
Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics. Encyclopaedic in scope: 9590 entries, 168634 cross-references, 3830 figures, 86 animated graphics, 936 live Java applets. Sponsored by Mathematica. An absolutely superb site. Unfortunately (and hopefully only temporarily) closed.

Math on the Web. A general mathematical meta-site.

to the top
Conferences & courses
For ongoing education, the following sites are worth keeping an eye on:
The Amsterdam Institute of Finance offers courses in finance, derivatives, asset management and credit risk.

Fame. The International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering is a private foundation. Similar topics are offered.

Financial Conferences. A searchable database of conferences/courses worldwide, although the emphasis is on the UK.

ICBI the International Centre for Business Information.

to the top
Education
(links to their operations research activities)
Imperial College. Management School-OR Library. Strong operations research centre. The OR-Library is a collection of test data sets for a variety of problems and the site is a useful source of references and working papers.

Cambridge operations research

London School of Economics operational research

Harvard Business School - Technology and Operations Management

MIT Operations Research Centre

Princeton Operations Research and Financial Engineering

London Business School Centre For Operations Management

For distance learning:

Unisa  - Department of Quantitative Research

new Walden University now offers a Ph.D. in applied management and decision sciences

The following site provides rankings of US colleges and universities

                                                         quant.jpg (20454 bytes)

to the top
1