Elvin ZeynalliBusiness Analyst / Quantitative Researcher / Automation Engineerhttps://mrzeynalli.com/Building Portafel: A Research Terminal for 10,800 Instrumentshttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/portafel/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/portafel/Portafel covers ~10,800 stocks, ETFs, indices, commodities, FX pairs and crypto, turning company news into a personal briefing with filings, financials and price history alongside it. Here is how it is built and what was harder than expected.Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMTDeep Reinforcement Learning for Hedginghttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/deep_reinforcement_learning_hedging/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/deep_reinforcement_learning_hedging/An overview of deep hedging, focusing on how hedging can be framed as a risk-aware sequential decision problem under transaction costs, liquidity constraints, and convex risk measures.Fri, 03 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMTThe Stop Loss Was the Expensive Part: Backtesting Polymarket's 15-Minute BTC Marketshttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/polymarket-backtesting-environment/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/polymarket-backtesting-environment/Four ways a prediction-market backtest quietly lies to you, the recorder built to avoid them, and one clear finding: adding a stop loss made every variant of the strategy worse without changing which side was right.Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:00:00 GMTTeaching a Machine to Stock ATMs: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Cash Demand Forecastinghttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/atm-cash-demand-forecasting-ddpg/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/atm-cash-demand-forecasting-ddpg/A PhD course project applying the Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) algorithm to ATM cash demand forecasting. The problem is framed as a continuous Markov Decision Process, evaluated against industry benchmarks on the 111-ATM NN5 dataset.Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:00:00 GMTThe Application of Hidden Markov Model to Detect BTC Market Regimehttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/hmm-btc-market-regime/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/hmm-btc-market-regime/A research-oriented overview of how a Gaussian Mixture Hidden Markov Model can be used for BTC regime learning, with focus on theory, structure, and practical limitations.Thu, 13 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMTOptimal Blackjack Strategy Through Dynamic Programminghttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/blackjack/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/blackjack/An analysis of optimal Blackjack strategies using recursive decomposition and dealer probability analysis.Mon, 04 Aug 2025 19:13:00 GMTLearning Optimal Pricing with Reinforcement Learninghttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/rl_on_pricing_problem/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/rl_on_pricing_problem/A technical implementation of the Actor-Critic algorithm to solve dynamic pricing. This project benchmarks RL against theoretical optima to test its effectiveness in combinatorial optimization.Tue, 20 May 2025 13:00:00 GMTAnalysis of State Schools in Scotland: Map of Scotland with Schoolshttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/scottish_schools_map/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/scottish_schools_map/A geospatial project using the Postcodes.io API and Folium to create an interactive map of Scottish schools, visualizing the relationship between pupil density and local deprivation levels.Mon, 09 Oct 2023 15:33:53 GMTAnalysis of State Schools in Scotland: K-Means Clustering by Deprivation Rate and Pupils Quantityhttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/scottish_schools_clustering/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/scottish_schools_clustering/A data-driven analysis of 2,431 Scottish state schools using K-Means clustering to categorize local authorities by pupil density and SIMD deprivation scores to identify areas requiring NGO support.Sun, 08 Oct 2023 15:33:53 GMTBuilding a Web Crawler using Pythonhttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/python_web_crawler/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/python_web_crawler/A comprehensive guide to building a functional web crawler in exactly 100 lines of Python code, covering URL success handling, depth thresholds, and data storage.Sun, 01 Oct 2023 15:33:53 GMTWeb Analytics: Analyzing clickstream of 160,000 visitorshttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/web_analytics_clickstream/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/web_analytics_clickstream/A comprehensive analysis of 160,000 visitor clickstreams using Python. This project evaluates marketing campaign performance by calculating conversion, drop-out, and bounce rates across different traffic sources and platforms.Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:33:53 GMTFIFA23 Players Analysis: k-Means Clusteringhttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/fifa23_players_analysis/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/fifa23_players_analysis/An independent project using Python and k-Means clustering to classify over 10,000 FIFA 23 players into distinct performance segments based on Kaggle data.Tue, 24 Jan 2023 15:33:53 GMTNon-capital UK Cities with High-tech Potentialhttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/uk_cities_tech_potential/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/uk_cities_tech_potential/A data-driven analysis of Companies House records to identify emerging UK tech hubs outside of London. This project uses custom API scraping and SIC code filtering to rank cities by tech firm density and growth.Thu, 05 Jan 2023 15:33:53 GMTZondo Reports Text Analysishttps://mrzeynalli.com/blog/zondo_reports_analysis/https://mrzeynalli.com/blog/zondo_reports_analysis/An A-grade University of Edinburgh project utilizing Python and NLTK to analyze one exabyte of evidence from South Africa's Zondo Commission, identifying the most frequently mentioned publicly traded companies.Wed, 04 Jan 2023 15:33:53 GMT