The first lecture from the Experimental Design and Common Pitfalls of Machine Learning in Finance series addresses the four horsemen that present a barrier to adopting the scientific approach to machine learning in finance.

The second lecture focuses on a protocol for backtesting and how to avoid the seven sins of backtesting. By implementing the research protocol outlined in these articles, an investment manager can avoid making the seven common mistakes when backtesting and building quant models.

“The complexity of machine learning models presents a substantial barrier to their adoption for many investors. The algorithms that generate machine learning predictions are sometimes regarded as a black box and demand interpretation. Yimou Li, David Turkington, and Alireza Yazdani present a framework for demystifying the behavior of machine learning models. They decompose model predictions into linear, nonlinear, and interaction components and study a model’s predictive efficacy using the same components. Together, this forms a fingerprint to summarize key characteristics, similarities, and differences among different models.”