2025/05/02 by Nguyen Van Thanh, Van Thanh, Nguyen
Decision Sciences · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Forecasting Techniques and Applications #Machine Learning (cs.LG) #Performance (cs.PF) #Risk and Portfolio Optimization #Stock Market Forecasting Methods
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2505.03805
openalex publication_date 2025/05/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Randomized Uphill Climbing is a lightweight, stochastic search heuristic that has delivered state of the art equity alpha factors for quantitative hedge funds. I propose to generalize RUC into a model agnostic feature optimization framework for multivariate time series forecasting. The core idea is to synthesize candidate feature programs by randomly composing operators from a domain specific grammar, score candidates rapidly with inexpensive surrogate models on rolling windows, and filter instability via nested cross validation and information theoretic shrinkage. By decoupling feature discovery from GPU heavy deep learning, the method promises faster iteration cycles, lower energy consumption, and greater interpretability. Societal relevance: accurate, transparent forecasting tools empower resource constrained institutions, energy regulators, climate risk NGOs to make data driven decisions without proprietary black box models.