Abstract
Arbitrage opportunity exploration is important to ensure the profitability of statistical arbitrage. Prior studies that concentrate on cointegration model and other predictive models suffer from various problems in both prediction and transaction. To prevent these problems, we propose a novel strategy based on machine learning to explore arbitrage opportunities and further predict whether they will make a profit or not. The experiment is conducted in the context of Chinese financial markets with high-frequency data of CSI 300 exchange traded fund (ETF) and CSI 300 index futures (IF) from 2012 to 2020. We find that machine learning strategy can explore more arbitrage opportunities with lower risks, which outperforms cointegration strategy in different aspects. Besides, we compare different algorithms and find that LSTM achieve better performance in predicting the positive arbitrage samples and obtaining higher ROI and Sharpe ratio. The profitability of machine learning strategy validate the mean reversion and price discovery function of asset price between spot market and futures market, which further substantiate the market efficiency. Our empirical results provide practical significance to the development of quantitative finance.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abreu, D., & Brunnermeier, M. K. (2002). Synchronization risk and delayed arbitrage. Journal of Financial Economics, 66(2–3), 341–360
Ahn, D. H., Boudoukh, J., Richardson, M., & Whitelaw, R. F. (2002). Partial adjustment or stale prices? Implications from stock index and futures return autocorrelations. The Review of Financial Studies, 15(2), 655–689
Attari, M., Mello, A. S., & Ruckes, M. E. (2005). Arbitraging arbitrageurs. The Journal of Finance, 60(5), 2471–2511
Baker, M., & Savaşoglu, S. (2002). Limited arbitrage in mergers and acquisitions. Journal of Financial Economics, 64(1), 91–115
Balvers, R., Wu, Y., & Gilliland, E. (2000). Mean reversion across national stock markets and parametric contrarian investment strategies. The Journal of Finance, 55(2), 745–772
Barboza, F., Kimura, H., & Altman, E. (2017). Machine learning models and bankruptcy prediction. Expert Systems with Applications, 83, 405–417
Basak, S., & Croitoru, B. (2006). On the role of arbitrageurs in rational markets. Journal of Financial Economics, 81(1), 143–173
Basak, S., Kar, S., Saha, S., Khaidem, L., & Dey, S. R. (2019). Predicting the direction of stock market prices using tree-based classifiers. The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 47, 552–567
Brogaard, J., Hendershott, T., & Riordan, R. (2014). High-frequency trading and price discovery. The Review of Financial Studies, 27(8), 2267–2306
Broussard, J. P., & Vaihekoski, M. (2012). Profitability of pairs trading strategy in an illiquid market with multiple share classes. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, 22(5), 1188–1201
Chaboud, A. P., Chiquoine, B., Hjalmarsson, E., & Vega, C. (2014). Rise of the machines: Algorithmic trading in the foreign exchange market. The Journal of Finance, 69(5), 2045–2084
Chakravarty, S., Gulen, H., & Mayhew, S. (2004). Informed trading in stock and option markets. The Journal of Finance, 59(3), 1235–1257
Chatzis, S. P., Siakoulis, V., Petropoulos, A., Stavroulakis, E., & Vlachogiannakis, N. (2018). Forecasting stock market crisis events using deep and statistical machine learning techniques. Expert Systems with Applications, 112, 353–371.
Chaudhuri, K., & Wu, Y. (2003). Random walk versus breaking trend in stock prices: Evidence from emerging markets. Journal of Banking & Finance, 27(4), 575–592
Chen, Y. L., & Gau, Y. F. (2010). News announcements and price discovery in foreign exchange spot and futures markets. Journal of Banking & Finance, 34(7), 1628–1636
Chiu, M. C., & Wong, H. Y. (2015). Dynamic cointegrated pairs trading: Mean–variance time-consistent strategies. Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 290, 516–534
De Moura, C. E., Pizzinga, A., & Zubelli, J. (2016). A pairs trading strategy based on linear state space models and the Kalman filter. Quantitative Finance, 16(10), 1559–1573
Do, B., & Faff, R. (2010). Does simple pairs trading still work? Financial Analysts Journal, 66(4), 83–95
Fama, E. F. (1970). Efficient capital markets: Of theory and empirical work. The Journal of Finance, 25(2), 383–417.
Fama, E. F., & French, K. R. (1988). Permanent and temporary components of stock prices. Journal of Political Economy, 96(2), 246–273.
Gatev, E., Goetzmann, W. N., & Rouwenhorst, K. G. (2006). Pairs trading: Performance of a relative-value arbitrage rule. The Review of Financial Studies, 19(3), 797–827
Gârleanu, N., & Pedersen, L. H. (2013). Dynamic trading with predictable returns and transaction costs. The Journal of Finance, 68(6), 2309–2340
Hogan, S., Jarrow, R., Teo, M., & Warachka, M. (2004). Testing market efficiency using statistical arbitrage with applications to momentum and value strategies. Journal of Financial Economics, 73(3), 525–565.
Huck, N. (2015). Pairs trading: does volatility timing matter? Applied Economics, 47(57), 6239–6256
Huck, N. (2019). Large data sets and machine learning: Applications to statistical arbitrage. European Journal of Operational Research, 278(1), 330–342
Jordà, Ã., & Taylor, A. M. (2012). The carry trade and fundamentals: Nothing to fear but FEER itself. Journal of International Economics, 88(1), 74–90
Kao, C. (1999). Spurious regression and residual-based tests for cointegration in panel data. Journal of Econometrics, 90(1), 1–44.
Krauss, C., Do, X. A., & Huck, N. (2017). Deep neural networks, gradient-boosted trees, random forests: Statistical arbitrage on the S&P 500. European Journal of Operational Research, 259(2), 689–702
Kozhan, R., & Tham, W. W. (2012). Execution risk in high-frequency arbitrage. Management Science, 58(11), 2131–2149
McMillan, D. G., & Speight, A. E. (2006). Nonlinear dynamics and competing behavioral interpretations: Evidence from intra-day FTSE‐100 index and futures data. Journal of Futures Markets: Futures, Options, and Other Derivative Products, 26(4), 343–368
Neely, C. J., & Weller, P. A. (2013). Lessons from the evolution of foreign exchange trading strategies. Journal of Banking & Finance, 37(10), 3783–3798
Papantonis, I. (2016). Cointegration-based trading: evidence on index tracking & market-neutral strategies. Managerial Finance, 42(5), 449–471
Patel, J., Shah, S., Thakkar, P., & Kotecha, K. (2015). Predicting stock and stock price index movement using trend deterministic data preparation and machine learning techniques. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(1), 259–268.
Qian, B., & Rasheed, K. (2007). Stock market prediction with multiple classifiers. Applied Intelligence, 26(1), 25–33
Ross, S. A. (1976). The Arbitrage Theory of Capital Asset Pricing. Journal of Economic Theory, 13, 341–360
Schnaubelt, M., Fischer, T. G., & Krauss, C. (2020). Separating the signal from the noise–financial machine learning for Twitter. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 114, 103895
Schultz, P., & Shive, S. (2010). Mispricing of dual-class shares: Profit opportunities, arbitrage, and trading. Journal of Financial Economics, 98(3), 524–549
Tsay, R. S. (1998). Testing and modeling multivariate threshold models. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 93(443), 1188–1202.
Funding
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71532013, 71431008 and 71572050).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhan, B., Zhang, S., Du, H.S. et al. Exploring Statistical Arbitrage Opportunities Using Machine Learning Strategy. Comput Econ 60, 861–882 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10614-021-10169-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10614-021-10169-8