Aren’t genetic algorithms slow?
Yes and no. The original genetic algorithm is horribly slow and inefficient. Algorithms that are too closely based on the original are also slow. The algorithm that powers Portfolio Probe has been specially adapted to the problem at hand and performs quite well. Much of its speed is due to not being purely genetic — other techniques are employed as well. Many genetic algorithms for portfolio optimization merely use a genetic algorithm to optimize over one integer constraint and use a quadratic programming algorithm to actually do the optimization. This will also be slow, and fails to take full advantage of the flexibility that a genetic algorithm can provide.
