Genetic Algorithms and Investment Strategies

Book excerpt: When you combine nature's efficiency and the computer's speed, thefinancial possibilities are almost limitless. Today's traders andinvestment analysts require faster, sleeker weaponry in today'sruthless financial marketplace. Battles are now waged at computerspeed, with skirmishes lasting not days or weeks, but mere hours.In his series of influential articles, Richard Bauer has shown whythese professionals must add new computerized decision-making toolsto their arsenal if they are to succeed. In Genetic Algorithms andInvestment Strategies, he uniquely focuses on the most powerfulweapon of all, revealing how the speed, power, and flexibility ofGAs can help them consistently devise winning investmentstrategies. The only book to demonstrate how GAs can workeffectively in the world of finance, it first describes thebiological and historical bases of GAs as well as othercomputerized approaches such as neural networks and chaos theory.It goes on to compare their uses, advantages, and overallsuperiority of GAs. In subsequently presenting a basic optimizationproblem, Genetic Algorithms and Investment Strategies outlines theessential steps involved in using a GA and shows how it mimicsnature's evolutionary process by moving quickly toward anear-optimal solution. Introduced to advanced variations ofessential GA procedures, readers soon learn how GAs can be usedto: * Solve large, complex problems and smaller sets of problems * Serve the needs of traders with widely different investmentphilosophies * Develop sound market timing trading rules in the stock and bondmarkets * Select profitable individual stocks and bonds * Devise powerful portfolio management systems Complete with information on relevant software programs, a glossaryof GA terminology, and an extensive bibliography coveringcomputerized approaches and market timing, Genetic Algorithms andInvestment Strategies unveils in clear, nontechnical language aremarkably efficient strategic decision-making process that, whenimaginatively used, enables traders and investment analysts to reapsignificant financial rewards.