An empirical study of Genetic Programming generated trading rules in computerized stock trading service system

Technical analysis is aimed at devising trading rules capable of exploiting short-term fluctuations on the financial markets. The application of genetic programming (GP) as a means to automatically generate such trading rules on the stock markets has been studied. Computational results, based on historical pricing and transaction volume data, are reported for the thirty component stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average index. Statistical evidence shows that for the stocks that were studied, the use of GP based trading rules ensures a positive dollar return in all market scenarios. The performance of the GP based trading rules was also evaluated against the performance of the popularly used MACD technical indicator. In general, GP based trading rules offer greater returns over the simple buy and hold approach than the MACD trading signal.