Statistics

Bias-Variance Trade-off

The decomposition of prediction error into systematic error, sensitivity to the sample, and irreducible noise.

Expected error = bias squared + variance + irreducible noise.

Simple models are biased but stable; complex models are flexible but sample-dependent. Total error is minimised between the extremes.

Where finance sits. Because return data is mostly noise, the variance term dominates quickly, so the error-minimising complexity is far lower than in high-signal domains like image recognition. That is the substantive reason to prefer simple models, rather than mere conservatism.

Regularisation deliberately adds bias to remove more variance - profitable whenever the trade is favourable.

Full guide

The Bias-Variance Trade-off

Why the best model is not the one that fits your data best, and how the decomposition guides model choice.

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