Category Theory Basics for Modeling Trading Concepts in MQL5
Summary
This introduction explains category theory through domains, elements, and morphisms, then sketches how those ideas might help describe relationships among trading strategies, instruments, and market conditions. It presents MQL5 classes for representing elements and domains, including a uniqueness check so a domain does not contain duplicate elements. Examples build domains of even and odd numbers and introduce morphisms as mappings from a domain to a codomain.
The article also demonstrates a homomorphism whose mappings reach only part of its codomain, showing how to inspect the image of a mapping. It frames category theory as a possible language for classifying financial time series and building more general models. However, this first installment is mainly a conceptual and programming introduction: it does not develop a trading strategy, test market data, or show evidence of improved forecasting. Some code and the list of morphism types are omitted from the text, and the series defers further concepts to a later article.
Key ideas
- A category is described through domains and mappings between them.
- Elements are modeled as members of a domain, while morphisms map elements to a codomain.
- The MQL5 domain example checks for duplicate elements before adding them.
- A mapping can leave some codomain elements unreached, and its image can be inspected.
- The proposed trading use is conceptual and is not validated with strategy or forecasting results.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.