No abstract
Bayesian Decision Trees provide a probabilistic framework that reduces the instability of Decision Trees while maintaining their explainability. While Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods are typically used to construct Bayesian Decision Trees, here we provide a deterministic Bayesian Decision Tree algorithm that eliminates the sampling and does not require a pruning step. This algorithm generates the greedy-modal tree (GMT) which is applicable to both regression and classification problems. We tested the algorithm on various benchmark classification data sets and obtained similar accuracies to other known techniques. Furthermore, we show that we can statistically analyze how was the GMT derived from the data and demonstrate this analysis with a financial example. Notably, the GMT allows for a technique that provides explainable simpler models which is often a prerequisite for applications in finance or the medical industry.
K-Nearest Neighbours (k-NN) is a popular classification and regression algorithm, yet one of its main limitations is the difficulty in choosing the number of neighbours. We present a Bayesian algorithm to compute the posterior probability distribution for k given a target point within a dataset, efficiently and without the use of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods or simulation-alongside an exact solution for distributions within the exponential family. The central idea is that data points around our target are generated by the same probability distribution, extending outwards over the appropriate, though unknown, number of neighbours. Once the data is projected onto a distance metric of choice, we can transform the choice of k into a change-point detection problem, for which there is an efficient solution: we recursively compute the probability of the last change-point as we move towards our target, and thus de facto compute the posterior probability distribution over k. Applying this approach to both a classification and a regression UCI data-sets, we compare favourably and, most importantly, by removing the need for simulation, we are able to compute the posterior probability of k exactly and rapidly. As an example, the computational time for the Ripley dataset is a few milliseconds compared to a few hours when using a MCMC approach.
The construction of replication strategies for contingent claims in the presence of risk and market friction is a key problem of financial engineering. In real markets, continuous replication, such as in the model of Black, Scholes and Merton, is not only unrealistic but it is also undesirable due to high transaction costs. Over the last decades stochastic optimal-control methods have been developed to balance between effective replication and losses. More recently, with the rise of artificial intelligence, temporaldifference Reinforcement Learning, in particular variations of Q-learning in conjunction with Deep Neural Networks, have attracted significant interest. From a practical point of view, however, such methods are often relatively sample inefficient, hard to train and lack performance guarantees. This motivates the investigation of a stable benchmark algorithm for hedging. In this article, the hedging problem is viewed as an instance of a risk-averse contextual k-armed bandit problem, for which a large body of theoretical results and well-studied algorithms are available. We find that the k-armed bandit model naturally fits to the P &L formulation of hedging, providing for a more accurate and sample efficient approach than Q-learning and reducing to the Black-Scholes model in the absence of transaction costs and risks.
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