Tuesday, 16 July 2024
OCBC Securities launches AI stock-picker to triple investors
OCBC Securities has launched A.I. Oscar (OCBC Securities’ customer artificial intelligence radar), the first artificial intelligence (AI)-powered stock-picker tool to triple its base of active Singapore investors.
A.I. Oscar is able to predict stock price movements and generate hyper-personalised stock ideas. A.I. Oscar’s coverage has now expanded to the Hong Kong and United States markets on the back of a successful pilot from October 2023 to April 2024, where A.I. Oscar shortlisted only Singapore stocks. A.I. Oscar is a free service for all OCBC Securities’ customers that is available via the iOCBC app, iOCBC online trading platform and email.
Using deep learning algorithms, A.I. Oscar identifies and predicts market patterns to develop a thorough understanding of an investor's trading patterns. Factors such as the individual’s risk appetite, past trading activity and demographic information are analysed to curate and produce a list of 15 hyper-personalised stocks every week from exchanges in Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States (US) – the top three markets in which OCBC Securities customers trade. This personalisation allows investors to filter stocks that are highly likely to meet their trading preferences and criteria, and to immediately act on the idea by making a trade.
A.I. Oscar is a boon for young investors with a penchant for self-directed investing. In 2023, out of all the trades performed by customers under 35, 97% were made through digital platforms without the help or advice of a broker. Trading activity among young investors under 35 increased 50% during the pilot period compared to the months preceding the pilot of A.I. Oscar in 2023. Young investors opened more than half of all new trading accounts in 2023. Driven by this demand, OCBC Securities aims to triple the total number of active customers in this segment over the next three years by leveraging A.I. Oscar’s unique proposition.
Rigorously trained with a large dataset
A joint effort from OCBC’s Group Data Office and OCBC Securities’ trading strategists, A.I. Oscar uses deep learning algorithms that leverage human brain-inspired computational models called neural networks. Unlike rulebased models that make decisions based on a set of pre-determined criteria, A.I. Oscar identifies patterns in data to create dynamic prediction parameters.
A.I. Oscar was trained with data from over 4,000 stocks listed on SGX, Hong Kong Exchange, NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange, and NYSE American. The data includes more than a decade of stock fundamentals, macroeconomic factors, market patterns, and technical indicators related to these stocks. This data set is updated daily to ensure that A.I. Oscar is always current. OCBC’s data scientists and OCBC Securities’ trading strategists also continuously explore the latest AI modelling techniques to improve A.I. Oscar’s prediction accuracy and comprehension of the market.
Wilson He, managing director of OCBC Securities, said, “Investors already have access to a wide range information, but the challenge lies in being able to find the information relevant to them, and to distil it into an actionable trading idea. Being able to do so quickly is especially important in today’s fast-paced world. A.I. Oscar addresses this need, and we expect it to become an indispensable tool especially for digitally savvy young investors who prefer the self-service model. Our trading representatives have found A.I. Oscar to be useful too as the stock ideas generated can serve as a starting point for discussion between our trading representatives and customers.”
The creation of A.I. Oscar is consistent with OCBC’s corporate strategy, where investing in accelerating transformation and digitalisation is a key pillar. AI has been an area of focus and OCBC has had several successes on this front, including OCBC Wingman – a bot that was launched in May 2023 to help in-house developers write code. Based on lines that the developer has written, OCBC Wingman will generate suggestions that can be used for subsequent lines. OCBC Wingman was used in the creation of A.I. Oscar.
Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker
