Group intelligence shows 47% p.a. return

Original article: http://www.moex.com/n15142

Moscow Exchange and international fintech startup Cindicator, which produces hybrid intelligence technologies to introduce new products on financial markets, summed up the results of the contest, during which a robot trader completed trades based on the collective opinion of non-professional traders. Consequently, collective intelligence showed a 47% p.a. return in foreign currency.

Starting from January 19, any of those willing could make forecasts for the prices for futures, listed on Moscow Exchange, within three weeks on a daily basis. Cindicator’s robot trader modeled the deals by aggregating group forecasts for each futures (USD/RUB exchange rate, Brent oil, gold and silver).

The collective mind included 863 people, independent of each other: 40% of participants have never made trades on the exchange before, 60% had various investment experience.

During the competition, the robot modeled 27 trades based on forecasts of participants, 17 of them being profitable. This resulted in a 2.8% increase in the model portfolio in currency (47% p.a.) during the experiment.

The most accurate forecasts were made by an investor with 10-year experience, who will be awarded the main prize, iPhone7. Another 24 participants will get money prizes from the organizers of the competition.
Interestingly, the winner’s result would have been +1.48% (25% p.a.), which is almost half less than the return provided by hybrid intelligence.

The results of the competition showed high potential for the symbiosis of collective and artificial intelligence in the financial industry.
The competition was held as part of Finance&Banking Technologies track of Generation S accelerator.