We examine the intertemporal optimal consumption and investment problem in a continuous-time economy with a divisible durable good. Consumption services are assumed to be proportional to the stock of the good held and adjustment of the stock is costly, in that it involves the payment of a...

We use genetic algorithm to learn trading rules for the S&P 500 index using daily prices from 1928 to 1995. After transaction costs, the rules do not earn consistent excess returns over a simple buy-and-hold test periods.