This book takes up unique agent-based approaches to solving problems related to stock and their derivative markets. Toward this end, the authors have worked for more than 15 years on the development of an artificial market simulator called U-Mart for use as a research and educational tool. A noteworthy feature of the U-Mart simulator compared to other artificial market simulators is that U-Mart is an ultra-realistic artificial stock and their derivative market simulator. For example, it can simulate “arrowhead,” a next-generation trading system used in the Tokyo Stock Exchange and other major markets, as it takes into consideration the institutional design of the entire market. Another interesting feature of the U-Mart simulator is that it permits both human and computer programs to participate simultaneously as traders in the artificial market. In this book, first the details of U-Mart are explained, enabling readers to install and run the simulator on their computers for research and educational purposes. The simulator thus can be used for gaming simulation of the artificial market and even for users as agents to implement their own trading strategies for agent-based simulation (ABS).The book also presents selected research cases using the U-Mart simulator. Here, topics include automated acquisition of trading strategy using artificial intelligence techniques, evaluation of a market maker system to treat thin markets such as those for small and regional businesses, systemic risk analysis of the financial market considering institutional design of the market, and analysis of how humans behave and learn in gaming simulation. New perspectives on artificial market research are provided, and the power, potential, and challenge of ABS are discussed. As explained in this important work, ABS is considered to be an effective tool as the third approach of social science, an alternative to traditional literary and mathematical approaches.

This paper presents a new financial market simulator that may be used as a tool in both industry and academia for research in market micro-structure. It allows multiple automated traders and/or researchers to simultaneously connect to an exchange-like environment, where they are able to asynchronously trade several financial assets at the same time. In its current iteration, this order-driven market implements the basic rules of U.S. equity markets, supporting both market and limit orders, and executing them in a first-in-first-out fashion. We overview the system architecture and we present possible use cases. We demonstrate how a set of automated agents is capable of producing a price process with characteristics similar to the statistics of real price from financial markets. Finally, we detail a market stress scenario and we draw, what we believe to be, interesting conclusions about crash events.

This book takes up unique agent-based approaches to solving problems related to stock and their derivative markets. Toward this end, the authors have worked for more than 15 years on the development of an artificial market simulator called U-Mart for use as a research and educational tool. A noteworthy feature of the U-Mart simulator compared to other artificial market simulators is that U-Mart is an ultra-realistic artificial stock and their derivative market simulator. For example, it can simulate “arrowhead,” a next-generation trading system used in the Tokyo Stock Exchange and other major markets, as it takes into consideration the institutional design of the entire market. Another interesting feature of the U-Mart simulator is that it permits both human and computer programs to participate simultaneously as traders in the artificial market. In this book, first the details of U-Mart are explained, enabling readers to install and run the simulator on their computers for research and educational purposes. The simulator thus can be used for gaming simulation of the artificial market and even for users as agents to implement their own trading strategies for agent-based simulation (ABS).The book also presents selected research cases using the U-Mart simulator. Here, topics include automated acquisition of trading strategy using artificial intelligence techniques, evaluation of a market maker system to treat thin markets such as those for small and regional businesses, systemic risk analysis of the financial market considering institutional design of the market, and analysis of how humans behave and learn in gaming simulation. New perspectives on artificial market research are provided, and the power, potential, and challenge of ABS are discussed. As explained in this important work, ABS is considered to be an effective tool as the third approach of social science, an alternative to traditional literary and mathematical approaches.

This pioneering book describes the applications of agent-based modeling to financial markets. It presents a new paradigm for finance, where markets are treated as complex systems whose behavior emerges as a result of interactions of market participants, market institutions, and market rules. This includes both a presentation of the conceptual model and its software implementation. It also summarises the result of the profound research on the successful practical application of this new approach to answer questions regarding the NASDAQ Stock Market's decimalization that was implemented in 2001.The book presents conceptual foundations for modeling markets as complex systems. It describes the agent-based model of the NASDAQ stock market, including strategies used by market-makers and investors, market participants interactions, and impacts of rules and regulations. It includes analyses of simulation behavior, comparison with the behaviors observed in the real-world markets (existence of fat tails, spread clustering, etc.), and predictions about possible outcomes of decimalization. A framework for calibrating the market behavior and individual market-makers strategies to historical data is also presented.

Financial markets is an integral component of many finance-oriented courses. This paper describes an in-class simulation that allows students to trade securities in the financial market on a quarterly basis over an assumed five year period. Real economic and company specific data is provided to students prior to the opening of the in-class market. The results of the first trial of the simulation is suggestive of student participants following the behaviour of others, supporting the hypothesis that investors are subject to the quot;herd instinctquot;. The analysis of the realistic information provided appeared, with many participants, to be of secondary importance. The simulation provides a realistic introduction to the operation and practicalities of financial markets and in combination with a lengthy, in-class, quot;debriefingquot; at the conclusion of the simulation, can result in a real and lasting understanding of the valuation process.

Monte Carlo methods have been used for decades in physics, engineering, statistics, and other fields. Monte Carlo Simulation and Finance explains the nuts and bolts of this essential technique used to value derivatives and other securities. Author and educator Don McLeish examines this fundamental process, and discusses important issues, including specialized problems in finance that Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo methods can help solve and the different ways Monte Carlo methods can be improved upon. This state-of-the-art book on Monte Carlo simulation methods is ideal for finance professionals and students. Order your copy today.

When they want to see how complex systems work, scientists often turn to asynchronous-time simulation, which allows processes to change sporadically over time, typically at irregular intervals. While rarely used in finance today, such models may turn out to be valuable tools for understanding how markets respond to changes in the participation rates of different types of investors, for example, or to changes in regulatory or investment policies. The asynchronous, discrete-event, stock market simulator described here allows users to create a model of the market, using their own inputs. Users can vary the numbers of investors, traders, portfolio analysts, and securities, as well as their investing and trading decision rules. Such a simulation may be able to provide a more realistic picture of complex markets.

The Oxford Handbook of Computational Economics and Finance provides a survey of both the foundations of and recent advances in the frontiers of analysis and action. It is both historically and interdisciplinarily rich and also tightly connected to the rise of digital society. It begins with the conventional view of computational economics, including recent algorithmic development in computing rational expectations, volatility, and general equilibrium. It then moves from traditional computing in economics and finance to recent developments in natural computing, including applications of nature-inspired intelligence, genetic programming, swarm intelligence, and fuzzy logic. Also examined are recent developments of network and agent-based computing in economics. How these approaches are applied is examined in chapters on such subjects as trading robots and automated markets. The last part deals with the epistemology of simulation in its trinity form with the integration of simulation, computation, and dynamics. Distinctive is the focus on natural computationalism and the examination of the implications of intelligent machines for the future of computational economics and finance. Not merely individual robots, but whole integrated systems are extending their "immigration" to the world of Homo sapiens, or symbiogenesis.

Practitioners in risk management are familiar with the use of the FHS (filtered historical simulation) to finding realistic simulations of security returns. This approach has become increasingly popular over the last fifteen years, as it is both flexible and reliable, and is now being accepted in the academic community. Simulating Security Returns is a useful guide for researchers, students, and practitioners. It uses the FHS approach to help simulate the returns of large portfolios of securities. While other simulation methods use the covariance matrix of security returns, which suffers the curse of dimensionality even for modest portfolios, Barone Adesi demonstrates how FHS can accurately adjust to current market conditions.

In Volatility and Correlation 2nd edition: The Perfect Hedger and the Fox, Rebonato looks at derivatives pricing from the angle of volatility and correlation. With both practical and theoretical applications, this is a thorough update of the highly successful Volatility & Correlation – with over 80% new or fully reworked material and is a must have both for practitioners and for students. The new and updated material includes a critical examination of the ‘perfect-replication’ approach to derivatives pricing, with special attention given to exotic options; a thorough analysis of the role of quadratic variation in derivatives pricing and hedging; a discussion of the informational efficiency of markets in commonly-used calibration and hedging practices. Treatment of new models including Variance Gamma, displaced diffusion, stochastic volatility for interest-rate smiles and equity/FX options. The book is split into four parts. Part I deals with a Black world without smiles, sets out the author’s ‘philosophical’ approach and covers deterministic volatility. Part II looks at smiles in equity and FX worlds. It begins with a review of relevant empirical information about smiles, and provides coverage of local-stochastic-volatility, general-stochastic-volatility, jump-diffusion and Variance-Gamma processes. Part II concludes with an important chapter that discusses if and to what extent one can dispense with an explicit specification of a model, and can directly prescribe the dynamics of the smile surface. Part III focusses on interest rates when the volatility is deterministic. Part IV extends this setting in order to account for smiles in a financially motivated and computationally tractable manner. In this final part the author deals with CEV processes, with diffusive stochastic volatility and with Markov-chain processes. Praise for the First Edition: “In this book, Dr Rebonato brings his penetrating eye to bear on option pricing and hedging.... The book is a must-read for those who already know the basics of options and are looking for an edge in applying the more sophisticated approaches that have recently been developed.” —Professor Ian Cooper, London Business School “Volatility and correlation are at the very core of all option pricing and hedging. In this book, Riccardo Rebonato presents the subject in his characteristically elegant and simple fashion...A rare combination of intellectual insight and practical common sense.” —Anthony Neuberger, London Business School