Modeling Stock Analysts' Decision Making: An Intelligent Decision Support System

It is well known that security analysis is a time-consuming and error-prone process. However, it can be improved or enhanced considerably by automated reasoning. Efforts to reduce the inaccuracy and incorrectness of analyses and to enhance the confidence levels of stock selection have led to the development of an intelligent decision support system called Trade Expert, which assists, not replaces, portfolio managers. Trade Expert assumes the role of a hypothetical securities analyst capable of analyzing stocks, calling market turns, and making recommendations. It has a knowledge base of stock trading expertise, and a case base of past episodes and consequences of decisions. By combining knowledge-based problem solving with case-based reasoning and fuzzy inference, Trade Expert demonstrates forms of intelligent behavior not yet observed in traditional decision support systems and expert systems. The novelty of this research lies in its application to analogical reasoning, fuzzy reasoning, and knowledge-based decision making.