IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/quantf/v1y2001i4p397-413.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A real-time adaptive trading system using genetic programming

Author

Listed:
  • M. A. H. dempster
  • C. M. Jones

Abstract

Technical analysis indicators are widely used by traders in financial and commodity markets to predict future price levels and enhance trading profitability. We have previously shown a number of popular indicator-based trading rules to be loss-making when applied individually in a systematic manner. However, technical traders typically use combinations of a broad range of technical indicators. Moreover, successful traders tend to adapt to market conditions by 'dropping' trading rules as soon as they become loss-making or when more profitable rules are found. In this paper we try to emulate such traders by developing a trading system consisting of rules based on combinations of different indicators at different frequencies and lags. An initial portfolio of such rules is selected by a genetic algorithm applied to a number of indicators calculated on a set of US Dollar/British Pound spot foreign exchange tick data from 1994 to 1997 aggregated to various intraday frequencies. The genetic algorithm is subsequently used at regular intervals on out-of-sample data to provide new rules and a feedback system is utilized to rebalance the rule portfolio, thus creating two levels of adaptivity. Despite the individual indicators being generally loss-making over the data period, the best rule found by the developed system is found to be modestly, but significantly, profitable in the presence of realistic transaction costs.

Suggested Citation

  • M. A. H. dempster & C. M. Jones, 2001. "A real-time adaptive trading system using genetic programming," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(4), pages 397-413.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:quantf:v:1:y:2001:i:4:p:397-413
    DOI: 10.1088/1469-7688/1/4/301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1088/1469-7688/1/4/301
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1088/1469-7688/1/4/301?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:quantf:v:1:y:2001:i:4:p:397-413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RQUF20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.