IFin Seminar, Eric Ghysels, University of North Carolina - "Artificial Intelligence Alter Egos: Who might benefit from Robo-investing?"
Institute of Finance
Date: 6 December 2019 / 12:25 - 13:40
Seminar title: "Artificial Intelligence Alter Egos: Who might benefit from Robo-investing?"
Prof Eric Ghysels, University of North Carolina
12:25 - 13:40
Auditorium (main building, 3rd level)
Lugano Campus
Abstract
Artificial intelligence, or AI, enhancements are increasingly shaping our daily lives. Financial decision-making is no exception to this. We introduce the notion of AI Alter Egos, which are shadow robo-investors, and use a unique data set covering brokerage accounts for a large cross-section of investors over a sample from January 2003 to March 2012, which includes the 2008 financial crisis, to assess the benefits of robo-investing. We have detailed investor characteristics and records of all trades. Our data set consists of investors typically targeted for robo-advising. We explore robo-investing strategies commonly used in the industry, including some involving advanced machine learning methods. The man versus machine comparison allows us to shed light on potential benefits the emerging robo-advising industry may provide to certain segments of the population, such as low income and/or high risk averse investors.
