Research
Every research paper we have written up, newest paper first. New arrivals are screened automatically for topical fit with systematic trading; the ones that clear it are read, written up, and — where the idea is testable on our data — backtested. Particular focus on alpha hypotheses that can be formalised and tested. The Radar also covers portfolio construction, market risk and execution where the research is directly relevant to systematic investment processes. Follow new entries by RSS.
16,915 papers screened · 588 on the radar · 17 shown
The value of a forecast depends on its accuracy, but also on its actionability. In trading, an investor must translate return forecasts into positions while accounting for trading costs and the lingering impact of earlier trades.
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.07 · Return +8.8% · Max DD -55.7%
Classical execution models assume linear impact, diffusive prices, and an exogenous horizon. We study execution under concave power-law impact and Hurst-scaled price fluctuations, and make two contributions.
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe -0.29 · Return -9.4% · Max DD -22.3%
Portfolio optimization is constrained by linear assumptions and limited integration of multi-modal information.
PAPER REPORTS · SBCA 2-asset (CAT, GILD), test 2021–2022, net of 0.25% one-way commission: final portfolio value 1.4392, annual return… · SBCA 4-asset (CAT, GILD, GS, KO), test 2021–2022, net of 0.25% one-way commission: final portfolio value 1.3564, annual…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 2.62 · Return +54.1% · Max DD -10.1%
To extend conventional model-level feature importance to economically meaningful portfolio outcomes and decisions, we propose a local first-order attribution-propagation framework that maps allocation-function feature exposures to local sensitivities of…
PAPER REPORTS · XGB baseline, OOS 2006-2024: net Sharpe 0.6175 (annualised, 5bp per unit turnover); gross Sharpe 1.0207; net mean 2.55%… · FFN baseline, OOS 2006-2024: net Sharpe 0.5750 (5bp); gross Sharpe 1.3051; net mean 2.65% p.a.; net FF5 alpha 1.12%…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe -0.82 · Return -24.2% · Max DD -31.5%
We study finite-horizon portfolio optimization with proportional transaction costs and trading opportunities arriving at the jump times of a Cox process.
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.52 · Return +0.0% · Max DD -0.0%
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe -0.03 · Return -1.8% · Max DD -19.0%
The equal-weighted portfolio is a passive, rule-based strategy that has historically been difficult to outperform, delivering higher returns than the capitalization-weighted "market" benchmark across many markets and periods.
PAPER REPORTS · Mean-reverting frictional λ*,mr, 1995–2024 monthly, net of 15bp proportional costs: - cumulative net return 44.92 -… · Trending frictional λ*,trend, 1995–2024, net of 15bp costs: - cumulative net return 31.41 - return 0.13, volatility…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.24 · Return +0.0% · Max DD -0.0%
For more than four decades, the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio has served as a benchmark for delivering reasonable returns without excessive risk. More recently, a 50/30/20 stock/bond/alternative portfolio has been suggested.
PAPER REPORTS · Markowitz: 11.6% annualized return, 9.0% annualized volatility, Sharpe 1.08, max DD 18.1%, mean DD 3.0%, turnover… · Simple Markowitz: 10.4% return, 9.3% volatility, Sharpe 0.91, max DD 15.8%, turnover 278.9%, same period and costs
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.43 · Return +18.9% · Max DD -16.4%
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to discover trading strategies, and much of the resulting literature shares a methodological weakness: many candidate strategies are generated, the best is reported, and neither look-ahead bias nor the…
PAPER REPORTS · Best gpt-4.1 discovery (E3, RSI x volume, 453-stock universe): design Sharpe 1.69 (2017-2021), evaluation Sharpe 0.18… · Best claude-sonnet-5 discovery: design Sharpe 0.44 (2017-2021), evaluation Sharpe -0.33 / -29% (2022-2025), DSR 0.18,…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe -0.10 · Return -10.8% · Max DD -47.8%
Deep hedging is a data-driven approach to learn hedging strategies. It relies on synthetic price paths generator, as real market data is often limited for training.
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 1.78 · Return +5.9% · Max DD -0.6%
Abstract Market timing models aim to anticipate short-term market movements according to a given source of information. Such information could be extracted from an analysis of history or a forecast of the future.
PAPER REPORTS · S&P500 timing, 2018: index -6.7% annualized; Strat1-L 3.8%, Strat1-LS 14.3%, Strat2-L 0.8%, Strat2-LS 8.2% (no… · S&P500 timing, 2023: index 21.6%; Strat1-L 21.9%, Strat1-LS 22.1%, Strat2-L 25.5%, Strat2-LS 29.4% (no transaction…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.61 · Return +49.0% · Max DD -31.2%
Current portfolio construction methods are either agnostic to the effects of idiosyncratic shocks (standard factor models) or to the latent data structure driving systematic returns (recent graph-based approaches).
PAPER REPORTS · Contagion Cut (proposed): CAGR 21.0%, Sharpe 1.07, Calmar 0.611, Jan 2019-Mar 2026, 0 bps transaction costs · Contagion Cut: Sharpe 1.04 at 10 bps, 1.01 at 20 bps, 0.929 at 50 bps (CAGR 20.5%, 19.9%, 18.3%), Jan 2019-Mar 2026
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.75 · Return +143.1% · Max DD -40.3%
Risk-aware Q-learning (RaQL) provides a model-free, two-timescale estimator for dynamic risk objectives, but its finite-budget behavior remains fragile: fixed inner-loop hyperparameters can produce unstable value estimates, persistent Bellman residuals, and…
PAPER REPORTS · Scheme 6 out-of-sample (918 daily obs, chronological test set, after 5bp turnover costs, mean over 20 seeds): Sharpe… · Scheme 0 fixed-parameter baseline out-of-sample (same test set, after 5bp costs, 20 seeds): Sharpe 0.5628 (sd 0.2281),…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.34 · Return +16.6% · Max DD -10.4%
This paper studies conditional allocation between a growth/technology ETF basket, denoted by $G$, and a defensive income/value-oriented ETF basket, denoted by $D$.
PAPER REPORTS · Selected smooth-score policy, 2017-06-28 to 2026-05-15, 10bp cost: 19.24% CAGR, 19.29% vol, Sharpe 1.01, Sortino 1.22,… · Selected policy vs 50/50 G/D: annual excess 1.78%, tracking error 3.74%, info ratio 0.48, max DD improvement 1.95%
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.92 · Return +111.2% · Max DD -31.6%
We present a unified approach to designing trend-following (TF) systems and classify them into European, American, and Time Series Momentum categories.
PAPER REPORTS · European TF system: annualized Sharpe 0.47, monthly returns net of transaction costs and net of 2%/20%… · American TF system: annualized Sharpe 0.50, net of transaction costs and 2%/20% fees, 31 December 1999 to 30 June 2026…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.10 · Return +8.4% · Max DD -30.4%
Gaussian Boson Sampling (GBS) provides a native photonic quantum heuristic for sampling dense subgraphs from adjacency matrices, offering a scalable physical approach to combinatorial graph search problems.
PAPER REPORTS · {"costs": "zero transaction costs and zero price impact assumed", "period": "2020 (trading effectively April 2020… · {"costs": "zero transaction costs and zero price impact assumed", "period": "2020", "sharpe": "2.050 ± 0.190",…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe -1.00 · Return -5.8% · Max DD -6.2%
We audit whether candle-based machine-learning models can turn predictions of cryptocurrency extrema or short-horizon outcomes into positive Binance Spot paper policies after assumed costs.
PAPER REPORTS · Frozen mandatory-daily selector: -6.72% compounded, 2026-07-01 to 07-19, 19 cycles, 3 wins/16 losses, 31 bps… · Frozen mandatory-daily selector cost stress, same period: -4.74% at 20 bps, -6.72% at 31 bps, -10.21% at 51 bps…
OUR BACKTEST · Sharpe 0.00 · Return +0.0% · Max DD 0.0%