This book mixes history on the ancient world with investment ideas for traders involved in financial markets today. It goes through ideas such as measuring risk, whether investors should try to outperform the market, Black Swans and ways of creating appropriate investment targets. It will appeal to professional traders and retail investors.

The first and only book to systematically address methodologies and processes of leveraging non-traditional information sources in the context of investing and risk management Harnessing non-traditional data sources to generate alpha, analyze markets, and forecast risk is a subject of intense interest for financial professionals. A growing number of regularly-held conferences on alternative data are being established, complemented by an upsurge in new papers on the subject. Alternative data is starting to be steadily incorporated by conventional institutional investors and risk managers throughout the financial world. Methodologies to analyze and extract value from alternative data, guidance on how to source data and integrate data flows within existing systems is currently not treated in literature. Filling this significant gap in knowledge, The Book of Alternative Data is the first and only book to offer a coherent, systematic treatment of the subject. This groundbreaking volume provides readers with a roadmap for navigating the complexities of an array of alternative data sources, and delivers the appropriate techniques to analyze them. The authors—leading experts in financial modeling, machine learning, and quantitative research and analytics—employ a step-by-step approach to guide readers through the dense jungle of generated data. A first-of-its kind treatment of alternative data types, sources, and methodologies, this innovative book: Provides an integrated modeling approach to extract value from multiple types of datasets Treats the processes needed to make alternative data signals operational Helps investors and risk managers rethink how they engage with alternative datasets Features practical use case studies in many different financial markets and real-world techniques Describes how to avoid potential pitfalls and missteps in starting the alternative data journey Explains how to integrate information from different datasets to maximize informational value The Book of Alternative Data is an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to analyze or monetize different non-traditional datasets, including Chief Investment Officers, Chief Risk Officers, risk professionals, investment professionals, traders, economists, and machine learning developers and users.

This book introduces machine learning methods in finance. It presents a unified treatment of machine learning and various statistical and computational disciplines in quantitative finance, such as financial econometrics and discrete time stochastic control, with an emphasis on how theory and hypothesis tests inform the choice of algorithm for financial data modeling and decision making. With the trend towards increasing computational resources and larger datasets, machine learning has grown into an important skillset for the finance industry. This book is written for advanced graduate students and academics in financial econometrics, mathematical finance and applied statistics, in addition to quants and data scientists in the field of quantitative finance. Machine Learning in Finance: From Theory to Practice is divided into three parts, each part covering theory and applications. The first presents supervised learning for cross-sectional data from both a Bayesian and frequentist perspective. The more advanced material places a firm emphasis on neural networks, including deep learning, as well as Gaussian processes, with examples in investment management and derivative modeling. The second part presents supervised learning for time series data, arguably the most common data type used in finance with examples in trading, stochastic volatility and fixed income modeling. Finally, the third part presents reinforcement learning and its applications in trading, investment and wealth management. Python code examples are provided to support the readers' understanding of the methodologies and applications. The book also includes more than 80 mathematical and programming exercises, with worked solutions available to instructors. As a bridge to research in this emergent field, the final chapter presents the frontiers of machine learning in finance from a researcher's perspective, highlighting how many well-known concepts in statistical physics are likely to emerge as important methodologies for machine learning in finance.

Get to know the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of machine learning and big data in quantitative investment Big Data and Machine Learning in Quantitative Investment is not just about demonstrating the maths or the coding. Instead, it’s a book by practitioners for practitioners, covering the questions of why and how of applying machine learning and big data to quantitative finance. The book is split into 13 chapters, each of which is written by a different author on a specific case. The chapters are ordered according to the level of complexity; beginning with the big picture and taxonomy, moving onto practical applications of machine learning and finally finishing with innovative approaches using deep learning. • Gain a solid reason to use machine learning • Frame your question using financial markets laws • Know your data • Understand how machine learning is becoming ever more sophisticated Machine learning and big data are not a magical solution, but appropriately applied, they are extremely effective tools for quantitative investment — and this book shows you how.

With the right broker, and just a few hundred dollars or pounds, anyone can become a leveraged trader. The products and tools needed are accessible to all: FX, a margin account, CFDs, spread-bets and futures. But this level playing field comes with great risks. Trading with leverage is inherently dangerous. With leverage, losses and costs – the two great killers for traders – are magnified. This does not mean leverage must be avoided altogether, but it does mean that it needs to be used safely. In Leveraged Trading, Robert Carver shows you how to do exactly that, by using a trading system. A trading system can be employed to tackle those twin dangers of serious losses and high costs. The trading systems introduced in this book are simple and carefully designed to use the correct amount of leverage and trade at a suitable frequency. Robert shows how to trade a simple Starter System on its own, on a single instrument and with a single rule for opening positions. He then moves on to show how the Starter System can be adapted, as you gain experience and confidence. The system can be diversified into multiple instruments and new trading rules can be added. For those who wish to go further still, advice on making more complex improvements is included: how to develop your own trading systems, and how to combine a system with your own human judgement, using an approach Robert calls Semi-Automatic Trading. For those trading with leverage, looking for a way to take a controlled approach and manage risk, a properly designed trading system is the answer. Pick up Leveraged Trading and learn how.

In Advanced Futures Trading Strategies , Robert Carver provides a complete practical guide to 30 trading strategies for the futures markets. The strategies cover more than 100 tradable instruments and draw on over 50 years of historic data, and are suitable for both discretionary and systematic traders. The strategies begin with the most basic, and progress to more advanced strategies, including trading calendar spreads, breakouts, trend following, fast mean reversion, and many more. For each strategy, Robert describes: How and why it works. Detailed rules for putting the strategy into practice. Past performance from historical data. Historic strategy behaviour and risk. And throughout the book, building up step by step, Robert explains other essential aspects of effective futures trading, including: How to properly calculate profits and assess performance. How to measure and forecast risk. How to calculate trading costs. The trading capital you need for specific futures instruments. How to decide which instrument to trade. Diversifying by using multiple strategies together. And much, much more. Advanced Futures Trading Strategies is the definitive practical guide to futures trading strategies. No one who intends to seriously trade futures can afford to be without it.

Upgrade your programming language to more effectively handle high-frequency data Machine Learning and Big Data with KDB+/Q offers quants, programmers and algorithmic traders a practical entry into the powerful but non-intuitive kdb+ database and q programming language. Ideally designed to handle the speed and volume of high-frequency financial data at sell- and buy-side institutions, these tools have become the de facto standard; this book provides the foundational knowledge practitioners need to work effectively with this rapidly-evolving approach to analytical trading. The discussion follows the natural progression of working strategy development to allow hands-on learning in a familiar sphere, illustrating the contrast of efficiency and capability between the q language and other programming approaches. Rather than an all-encompassing "bible"-type reference, this book is designed with a focus on real-world practicality to help you quickly get up to speed and become productive with the language. Understand why kdb+/q is the ideal solution for high-frequency data Delve into "meat" of q programming to solve practical economic problems Perform everyday operations including basic regressions, cointegration, volatility estimation, modelling and more Learn advanced techniques from market impact and microstructure analyses to machine learning techniques including neural networks The kdb+ database and its underlying programming language q offer unprecedented speed and capability. As trading algorithms and financial models grow ever more complex against the markets they seek to predict, they encompass an ever-larger swath of data - more variables, more metrics, more responsiveness and altogether more "moving parts." Traditional programming languages are increasingly failing to accommodate the growing speed and volume of data, and lack the necessary flexibility that cutting-edge financial modelling demands. Machine Learning and Big Data with KDB+/Q opens up the technology and flattens the learning curve to help you quickly adopt a more effective set of tools.

Commodity Option Pricing: A Practitioner’s Guide covers commodity option pricing for quantitative analysts, traders or structurers in banks, hedge funds and commodity trading companies. Based on the author’s industry experience with commodity derivatives, this book provides a thorough and mathematical introduction to the various market conventions and models used in commodity option pricing. It introduces the various derivative products typically traded for commodities and describes how these models can be calibrated and used for pricing and risk management. This book has been developed with input from traders and features examples using real-world data, together with relevant up-to-date academic research. This book includes practical descriptions of market conventions and quote codes used in commodity markets alongside typical products seen in broker quotes and used in calibration. Also discussed are commodity models and their mathematical derivation and volatility surface modelling for traded commodity derivatives. Gold, silver and other precious metals are addressed, including gold forward and gold lease rates, as well as copper, aluminium and other base metals, crude oil and natural gas, refined energy and electricity. There are also sections on the products encountered in commodities such as crack spread and spark spread options and alternative commodities such as carbon emissions, weather derivatives, bandwidth and telecommunications trading, plastics and freight. Commodity Option Pricing is ideal for anyone working in commodities or aiming to make the transition into the area, as well as academics needing to familiarize themselves with the industry conventions of the commodity markets.

This is not just another book with yet another trading system. This is a complete guide to developing your own systems to help you make and execute trading and investing decisions. It is intended for everyone who wishes to systematise their financial decision making, either completely or to some degree. Author Robert Carver draws on financial theory, his experience managing systematic hedge fund strategies and his own in-depth research to explain why systematic trading makes sense and demonstrates how it can be done safely and profitably. Every aspect, from creating trading rules to position sizing, is thoroughly explained. The framework described here can be used with all assets, including equities, bonds, forex and commodities. There is no magic formula that will guarantee success, but cutting out simple mistakes will improve your performance. You'll learn how to avoid common pitfalls such as over-complicating your strategy, being too optimistic about likely returns, taking excessive risks and trading too frequently. Important features include: - The theory behind systematic trading: why and when it works, and when it doesn't. - Simple and effective ways to design effective strategies. - A complete position management framework which can be adapted for your needs. - How fully systematic traders can create or adapt trading rules to forecast prices. - Making discretionary trading decisions within a systematic framework for position management. - Why traditional long only investors should use systems to ensure proper diversification, and avoid costly and unnecessary portfolio churn. - Adapting strategies depending on the cost of trading and how much capital is being used. - Practical examples from UK, US and international markets showing how the framework can be used. Systematic Trading is detailed, comprehensive and full of practical advice. It provides a unique new approach to system development and a must for anyone considering using systems to make some, or all, of their investment decisions.

This book mixes history on the ancient world with investment ideas for traders involved in financial markets today. It goes through ideas such as measuring risk, whether investors should try to outperform the market, Black Swans and ways of creating appropriate investment targets. It will appeal to professional traders and retail investors.