# Portfolio Reinforcement Learning with Scenario-Context Rollout

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.24037 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.24037/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Adversarial robustness and RL in finance, one of 15 directions in Deep reinforcement learning methods.
- Builds on 11 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Feb 2026.

## Placed in

- Deep reinforcement learning methods / [Adversarial robustness and RL in finance](https://mlsanity.com/deeprl/adversarial-robustness-and-rl-in-finance/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [High-Dimensional Continuous Control Using Generalized Advantage Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02438/) (2015)
- [Offline Reinforcement Learning: Tutorial, Review, and Perspectives on Open Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.01643/) (2020)
- [Conservative Q-Learning for Offline Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04779/) (2020)
- [Off-Policy Deep Reinforcement Learning without Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.02900/) (2018)
- [Stabilizing Off-Policy Q-Learning via Bootstrapping Error Reduction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00949/) (2019)
- [Computational Optimal Transport](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.00567/) (2018)
- [A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for the Financial Portfolio Management Problem](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.10059/) (2017)
- [Exponential Bellman Equation and Improved Regret Bounds for Risk-Sensitive Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.03947/) (2021)
- [On Generalized Bellman Equations and Temporal-Difference Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.04463/) (2017)
- [FinXplore: An Adaptive Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for Balancing and Discovering Investment Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.10531/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Market regime shifts induce distribution shifts that can degrade the performance of portfolio rebalancing policies. We propose macro-conditioned scenario-context rollout (SCR) that generates plausible next-day multivariate return scenarios under stress events. However, doing so faces new challenges, as history will never tell what would have happened differently. As a result, incorporating scenario-based rewards from rollouts introduces a reward--transition mismatch in temporal-difference learning, destabilizing RL critic training. We analyze this inconsistency and show it leads to a mixed evaluation target. Guided by this analysis, we construct a counterfactual next state using the rollout-implied continuations and augment the critic agent's bootstrap target. Doing so stabilizes the learning and provides a viable bias-variance tradeoff. In out-of-sample evaluations across 31 distinct universes of U.S. equity and ETF portfolios, our method improves Sharpe ratio by up to 76% and reduces maximum drawdown by up to 53% compared with classic and RL-based portfolio rebalancing baselines.