MarS: a Financial Market Simulation Engine Powered by Generative Foundation Model

Abstract

Generative models aim to simulate realistic effects of various actions across different contexts, from text generation to visual effects. Despite efforts to build real-world simulators, leveraging generative models for virtual worlds, like financial markets, remains underexplored. In financial markets, generative models can simulate market effects of various behaviors, enabling interaction with market scenes and players, and training strategies without financial risk. This simulation relies on the finest structured data in financial market like orders thus building the finest realistic simulation. We propose Large Market Model (LMM), an order-level generative foundation model, for financial market simulation, akin to language modeling in the digital world. Our financial Market Simulation engine (MarS), powered by LMM, addresses the need for realistic, interactive and controllable order generation. Key objectives of this paper include evaluating LMM's scaling law in financial markets, assessing MarS's realism, balancing controlled generation with market impact, and demonstrating MarS's potential applications. We showcase MarS as a forecast tool, detection system, analysis platform, and agent training environment. Our contributions include pioneering a generative model for financial markets, designing MarS to meet domain-specific needs, and demonstrating MarS-based applications' industry potential.