You're reading from Machine Learning for Algorithmic Trading Predictive models to extract signals from market and alternative data for systematic trading strategies with Python

Product type Paperback

Published in Jul 2020

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781839217715

Length 820 pages

Edition 2nd Edition

Languages

Python

Tools

TensorFlow

Concepts

Machine Learning

Author (1):

Stefan Jansen

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Table of Contents (27) Chapters

Preface

1. Machine Learning for Trading – From Idea to Execution

2. Market and Fundamental Data – Sources and Techniques FREE CHAPTER

3. Alternative Data for Finance – Categories and Use Cases

4. Financial Feature Engineering – How to Research Alpha Factors

5. Portfolio Optimization and Performance Evaluation

6. The Machine Learning Process

7. Linear Models – From Risk Factors to Return Forecasts

8. The ML4T Workflow – From Model to Strategy Backtesting

9. Time-Series Models for Volatility Forecasts and Statistical Arbitrage

10. Bayesian ML – Dynamic Sharpe Ratios and Pairs Trading

11. Random Forests – A Long-Short Strategy for Japanese Stocks

12. Boosting Your Trading Strategy

13. Data-Driven Risk Factors and Asset Allocation with Unsupervised Learning

14. Text Data for Trading – Sentiment Analysis

15. Topic Modeling – Summarizing Financial News

16. Word Embeddings for Earnings Calls and SEC Filings

17. Deep Learning for Trading

18. CNNs for Financial Time Series and Satellite Images

19. RNNs for Multivariate Time Series and Sentiment Analysis

20. Autoencoders for Conditional Risk Factors and Asset Pricing

21. Generative Adversarial Networks for Synthetic Time-Series Data

22. Deep Reinforcement Learning – Building a Trading Agent

23. Conclusions and Next Steps

24. References

25. Index

Appendix: Alpha Factor Library

Financial Feature Engineering – How to Research Alpha Factors

Algorithmic trading strategies are driven by signals that indicate when to buy or sell assets to generate superior returns relative to a benchmark, such as an index. The portion of an asset's return that is not explained by exposure to this benchmark is called alpha, and hence the signals that aim to produce such uncorrelated returns are also called alpha factors.

If you are already familiar with ML, you may know that feature engineering is a key ingredient for successful predictions. This is no different in trading. Investment, however, is particularly rich in decades of research into how markets work, and which features may work better than others to explain or predict price movements as a result. This chapter provides an overview as a starting point for your own search for alpha factors.

This chapter also presents key tools that facilitate computing and testing alpha...