IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2206.03246.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Portfolio Transformer for Attention-Based Asset Allocation

Author

Listed:
  • Damian Kisiel
  • Denise Gorse

Abstract

Traditional approaches to financial asset allocation start with returns forecasting followed by an optimization stage that decides the optimal asset weights. Any errors made during the forecasting step reduce the accuracy of the asset weightings, and hence the profitability of the overall portfolio. The Portfolio Transformer (PT) network, introduced here, circumvents the need to predict asset returns and instead directly optimizes the Sharpe ratio, a risk-adjusted performance metric widely used in practice. The PT is a novel end-to-end portfolio optimization framework, inspired by the numerous successes of attention mechanisms in natural language processing. With its full encoder-decoder architecture, specialized time encoding layers, and gating components, the PT has a high capacity to learn long-term dependencies among portfolio assets and hence can adapt more quickly to changing market conditions such as the COVID-19 pandemic. To demonstrate its robustness, the PT is compared against other algorithms, including the current LSTM-based state of the art, on three different datasets, with results showing that it offers the best risk-adjusted performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Damian Kisiel & Denise Gorse, 2022. "Portfolio Transformer for Attention-Based Asset Allocation," Papers 2206.03246, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.03246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.03246
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chao Zhang & Zihao Zhang & Mihai Cucuringu & Stefan Zohren, 2021. "A Universal End-to-End Approach to Portfolio Optimization via Deep Learning," Papers 2111.09170, arXiv.org.
    2. Michaud, Richard O. & Michaud, Robert O., 2008. "Efficient Asset Management: A Practical Guide to Stock Portfolio Optimization and Asset Allocation," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 2, number 9780195331912.
    3. James B. Heaton & Nicholas Polson & Jan H. Witte, 2017. "Rejoinder to ‘Deep learning for finance: deep portfolios’," Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 19-21, January.
    4. Lim, Bryan & Arık, Sercan Ö. & Loeff, Nicolas & Pfister, Tomas, 2021. "Temporal Fusion Transformers for interpretable multi-horizon time series forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1748-1764.
    5. Damian Kisiel & Denise Gorse, 2021. "A Meta-Method for Portfolio Management Using Machine Learning for Adaptive Strategy Selection," Papers 2111.05935, arXiv.org.
    6. J. B. Heaton & N. G. Polson & J. H. Witte, 2017. "Deep learning for finance: deep portfolios," Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 3-12, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vitor Azevedo & Christopher Hoegner, 2023. "Enhancing stock market anomalies with machine learning," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 195-230, January.
    2. Tang, Xuli & Li, Xin & Ding, Ying & Song, Min & Bu, Yi, 2020. "The pace of artificial intelligence innovations: Speed, talent, and trial-and-error," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    3. Moews, Ben & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2020. "Predictive intraday correlations in stable and volatile market environments: Evidence from deep learning," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 547(C).
    4. Doron Avramov & Si Cheng & Lior Metzker, 2023. "Machine Learning vs. Economic Restrictions: Evidence from Stock Return Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2587-2619, May.
    5. Flori, Andrea & Regoli, Daniele, 2021. "Revealing Pairs-trading opportunities with long short-term memory networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(2), pages 772-791.
    6. Jiang, Kangqi & Du, Xinyi & Chen, Zhongfei, 2022. "Firms' digitalization and stock price crash risk," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Tom Liu & Stefan Zohren, 2023. "Multi-Factor Inception: What to Do with All of These Features?," Papers 2307.13832, arXiv.org.
    8. Rubesam, Alexandre, 2022. "Machine learning portfolios with equal risk contributions: Evidence from the Brazilian market," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PB).
    9. Zhengyong Jiang & Jeyan Thiayagalingam & Jionglong Su & Jinjun Liang, 2023. "CAD: Clustering And Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Multi-Period Portfolio Management Strategy," Papers 2310.01319, arXiv.org.
    10. Tom Liu & Stephen Roberts & Stefan Zohren, 2023. "Deep Inception Networks: A General End-to-End Framework for Multi-asset Quantitative Strategies," Papers 2307.05522, arXiv.org.
    11. Cakici, Nusret & Fieberg, Christian & Metko, Daniel & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Machine learning goes global: Cross-sectional return predictability in international stock markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    12. Kim, A. & Yang, Y. & Lessmann, S. & Ma, T. & Sung, M.-C. & Johnson, J.E.V., 2020. "Can deep learning predict risky retail investors? A case study in financial risk behavior forecasting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(1), pages 217-234.
    13. Uddin, Ajim & Yu, Dantong, 2020. "Latent factor model for asset pricing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    14. Qiong Wu & Christopher G. Brinton & Zheng Zhang & Andrea Pizzoferrato & Zhenming Liu & Mihai Cucuringu, 2019. "Equity2Vec: End-to-end Deep Learning Framework for Cross-sectional Asset Pricing," Papers 1909.04497, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    15. Axelsson, Birger & Song, Han-Suck, 2023. "Univariate Forecasting for REITs with Deep Learning: A Comparative Analysis with an ARIMA Model," Working Paper Series 23/10, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance, revised 14 Nov 2023.
    16. Luyang Chen & Markus Pelger & Jason Zhu, 2024. "Deep Learning in Asset Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(2), pages 714-750, February.
    17. Landry Frank Ineza Havugimana & Bolan Liu & Fanshuo Liu & Junwei Zhang & Ben Li & Peng Wan, 2023. "Review of Artificial Intelligent Algorithms for Engine Performance, Control, and Diagnosis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-25, January.
    18. Wenbo Wu & Jiaqi Chen & Zhibin (Ben) Yang & Michael L. Tindall, 2021. "A Cross-Sectional Machine Learning Approach for Hedge Fund Return Prediction and Selection," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4577-4601, July.
    19. Castro-Iragorri, C & Ramírez, J, 2021. "Forecasting Dynamic Term Structure Models with Autoencoders," Documentos de Trabajo 19431, Universidad del Rosario.
    20. D’Amato, Valeria & Levantesi, Susanna & Piscopo, Gabriella, 2022. "Deep learning in predicting cryptocurrency volatility," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 596(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2206.03246. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.