Agent-Based Market Simulation Software For Stock Market Price Forecasting

Rating: 
Adaptive Modeler 1.2.5 Evaluation Edition
Well this is something new and different from the usual stock analysis software’s.It is a forecasting tool which is used to  simulate complex systems such as stock markets better than traditional mathematical finance. Adaptive Modeler is a tool for creating agent-based market simulation models for price forecasting of real world market-traded securities such as stocks, ETFs or forex currencies.Adaptive Modeler is primarily designed for active trading of stocks or stock indices (i.e. using futures or ETFs) with sufficient volatility and small spreads.

Is it accurate ?
We can’t say it is as accurate tool as it is well know fact that financial markets have been studied using analytical mathematics based on a generalization of market participants and other simplifications and idealizations. However, the behavior of financial markets as observed in reality can not be fully described by such mathematical models. In reality, market prices are established by a large diversity of investors with different decision making methods and different investment goals (such as risk preference and time horizon). The complex dynamics of these heterogeneousinvestors and the resulting price formation process require a simulation model of multiple heterogeneous agents and a virtual market.
Adaptive Modeler does not contain built-in market data feeds nor does it contain interfaces for automatic order placement with online brokers. Market data is imported from ASCII (CSV) files and output data such as forecasts and trading signals can be exported to CSV files for further processing by other applications.

Adaptive Modeler 1.2.5 Evaluation Edition
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Our review
It seems to be a good piece of software, much simpler to use.You can take the feeds from yahoo and then just edit is according to its format.You have to adjust the time frame ,it needs minimum 250  quote to work around.Help file makes it easy to understand it.You can use the trial version of this software which is free and it does not expire (no limited trial period).It is for generalinvestors and you don’t need any programming skills.We miss the feature of  online data feeding for this software ,but still it is very good.Adaptive Modeler currently only reads quotes from ASCII (CSV) files. No built-in support for online data feeds is provided.Though you can use conversion tools for exporting data feeds to ASCII files in real-time with an additional tool:

• eSignal (with QCollector Expert)
• DTN IQFeed (with QCollector for DTN IQFeed)

For using Yahoo feeds for it follow these steps :
Download the excel datasheet from yahoo for the date range which you want to want to try,then go to excel open it ,go to data >> choose sort >> choose date >> Oldest to newest ok.

Features (Official):

Market data retrieval

• support for quote intervals ranging from 1 millisecond to multiple days
• support for variable intervals (i.e. for constant range bars or tick data)
• flexible and intelligent (CSV) ASCII file reader that automatically accepts a wide range of format variations such as those used by most charting and technical analysis software packages
• use of open, high, low, close, bid, ask and volume data fields
• automatic detection of quote interval, market trading hours, number of decimal digits, etc.
• automatic detection of date and time formats (in most cases)
• automatic detection/handling of missing quotes and changes in market trading hours
• accurate calculation of actual market trading time during a period for accurate compounding of returns, volatilities, etc.

User configurable model parameters

• population size
• initial agent wealth distribution method (equal, Pareto, Maxwell-Boltzmann)
• initial agent position distribution method (equal, Gaussian)
• stepsize of agent position values
• transaction costs for agents
• minimum price increment
• market trading hours
• forecast source (Virtual Market Price or Best Agents Price)
• Best Agents group size
• breeding frequency
• minimum breeding age
• parent selection group size
• mutation probability
• random seed value
• maximum genome size and depth
• minimum and maximum initial genome depth
• functions and terminals to use for creating trading rules
• optional uniqueness requirement for creation of new trading rules

Model creation and evolution

• saving and loading of model configurations
• pausing and resuming
• step mode
• Mersenne twister pseudo random number generator
• multi-threading (model evolution continues during most user operations)

Available output data (data series)

• return calculations of security, Trading Simulator and individual agents such as cumulative (excess) return and compounded (excess) return
• bar-to-bar returns, log returns, absolute returns, etc. of security and forecasts for quantitative analysis
• return distributions (of security or forecasts) with kurtosis
• weighted/historical volatility of security, Trading Simulator and individual agents
• autocorrelation of returns, volatility, volume and other series
• Hurst exponent of security
• Virtual Market price and Best Agents Price
• bid, ask and spread on Real Market and Virtual Market
• trading volume and number of trades on Virtual Market
• number of buy/sell orders in orderbook before/after market clearing
• agent defaults and margin calls
• forecast, forecasted price change, forecast error, mean absolute error, (root) mean squared error, right/wrong forecasted price changes, Forecast Directional Accuracy, Forecast Directional Significance, Forecast Directional Area Under Curve (AUC)
• filtered volatility (volatility during right forecasted bars and during wrong forecasted bars)
• historical averages and distribution data series for agent values such as age, wealth, position, (excess) return, volatility, beta, trade duration, number of offspring, genome size, genome depth
• genetic operators statistics such as average nodes crossed, average nodes mutated, number of mutations
• Trading Simulator data series such as wealth, position, trades, cumulative (excess) return, compounded (excess) return, weighted/historical volatility, beta, alpha, (relative) Value at Risk, Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio, risk-adjusted return, maximum drawdown, MAR ratio
• Historical and Monte Carlo Simulations of Trading Simulator returns based on user specified parameters such as investment horizon, sample period / expected drift and (filtered) volatility, expected forecast accuracy, wealth, VaR confidence level, etc.
• and others

Trading Simulator

• user configurable parameters (allow short positions, broker commissions, spread, slippage, etc.)
• forecast accuracy filter
• performance overview including cumulative (excess) return, compounded (excess) return, beta, historical volatility, (Relative) Value at Risk, Maximum Drawdown, Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio, Alpha, Risk-adjusted return, MAR ratio
• user configurable performance calculation settings including calculation period, compounding period, risk free rate, VaR confidence level
• sub period returns and statistics

Charts

• bar charts and line charts with up to 8 series per chart (real-time)
• histogram charts (real-time)
• dragging and dropping of data series into charts
• horizontal dragging of charts to browse through history
• transparant data overlay and crosshair for showing current or mouse-over values
• linking of charts for synchronized browsing and crosshairs
• lineair/logarithmic scaling (automatic)
• moving averages

Population window

• scatter plots of 2 agent values
• colored scatter plots of 3 agent values
• agent density plots
• correlation and regression (of agent values)
• 3 different axis modes (auto, standard deviation intervals and custom)
• 3 different gridline modes (round numbers, standard deviation intervals and bin edges)

Market Depth window

• visualizes virtual market pricing mechanism by showing depth of orderbook before and after clearing
• shows matching volume
• cumulative or non-cumulative volumes
• price range shown can be adjusted by user

Agent window

• shows agent details such as age, wealth, position, (excess) returns, trade duration, volatility, beta, generation, genome size, genome depth, etc.
• shows trading rule
• allows fast browsing through all agents

User Interface

• customizable user interface (tabbed windows, moving windows, maximizing windows, renaming, maximizing charts, changing colors of chart gridlines and axes, white or black backgrounds)
• creating multiple window instances possible (for Charts, Population and Agent Windows)
• saving and loading of Styles (workspace layout)
• choice between displaying US or European dates
• automatic scaling of GUI elements to system font and dpi settings to support various screensizes
• context-sensitive help (dialog boxes, data series tree, gene selection)
• optional user interface tooltips
• Startup window with recently used models, examples and tip of the day
• Getting Started Tutorial

Data exporting

• automatic (real-time) exporting of any data series values to a CSV file
• manual exporting of historical values of any data series to a CSV file

Batch processing and automation

• automatically create models for all quote files in a folder (using a given model configuration and Style)
• automatically create multiple runs (models) for a security (using a given model configuration and Style)
• automatically export results of multiple models to a single export file (CSV)
• automatically update existing models from the command line
• automatic naming, saving and closing of models
• saving and loading of batch settings
• batch creation through application user interface or command line

Logger

• keeps track of missing quotes, unexpected quote times and other non-critical irregularities in received quotes