CAIA Association and State Street Associates Present: Making Sense of Machine Learning
Description: Machine learning (ML) enables powerful algorithms to analyze financial data in new and exciting ways. But this excitement is often tempered by fear that investors don’t really understand why a model behaves the way it does. We need to move beyond this “black box” stigma. We propose a framework that demystifies the predictions from any ML algorithm. Our approach computes what we call a “fingerprint” for a given model’s linear, nonlinear, and interaction effects that drive its predictions — and ultimately its investment performance.


