Quantum-Inspired Portfolio Optimization Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Stock Allocation
Despite the dynamic nature of the market, large dimensionalities of asset space and varieties of financial products, portfolio optimization is a highly challenging problem. These traditional methods like Markowitz Mean-Variance Optimization and Risk Parity are highly static, and have not been able to adjust to the speed-of-change in market regimes. In this paper, the authors present a new Quantum-Inspired Portfolio Optimization (QIPO-RL) model that combines these interesting approaches to create a framework for a Reinforcement Learning (RL) based dynamic stock allocation algorithm. The framework blends quantum-inspired search techniques, an adaptive RL agent, and asset weights to maximize risk-adjusted asset returns, while maintaining assets in optimal allocation, and provides a way to rebalance a portfolio continuously in response to the changing market environment. The results from experiments were compared with state of the art baselines, which showed that QIPO-RL’s annual return is 16.8%, its Sharpe ratio is 1.61, and the maximum drawdown is 11.5% which is the best among all the competing methods. These findings support the synergism of using a global search method inspired by quantum computers in conjunction with an RL-based adaptation of decisions.