=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2608/paper72
|storemode=property
|title=Intelligent forecasting in multi-criteria decision-making
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2608/paper72.pdf
|volume=Vol-2608
|authors=Vladyslav Borysenko,Galyna Kondratenko,Ievgen Sidenko,Yuriy Kondratenko
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/cmis/BorysenkoKSK20
}}
==Intelligent forecasting in multi-criteria decision-making==
Intelligent Forecasting in Multi-Criteria Decision-Making
Vladyslav Borysenko[0000-0002-9381-3080], Galyna Kondratenko[0000-0002-8446-5096],
Ievgen Sidenko[0000-0001-6496-2469], Yuriy Kondratenko[0000-0001-7736-883X]
Intelligent Information Systems Department, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University,
68th Desantnykiv Str., 10, Mykolaiv, 54003, Ukraine,
kalambyr11@gmail.com, halyna.kondratenko@chmnu.edu.ua,
ievgen.sidenko@chmnu.edu.ua, yuriy.kondratenko@chmnu.edu.ua
Abstract. In this paper, the subject of the research is the intelligent forecasting
in multi-criteria decision-making, in particular, methods of prediction of time
series: traditional models of autoregression, smoothing techniques and machine
learning methods with the use of artificial neural networks and deep learning.
Time series of Amazon share prices from the official sources over the past years
serve as a base for exploration. The purpose of the work is to find out the pa-
rameters that influence the efficiency and accuracy of models for analysis and
forecast the share prices. Such assessment is complicated and vital because
various types of criteria, in particular, sales and profitability, market indexes,
exchange rates and general trends, etc., usually influence the decision-making
process. The methods of research include the consideration and analysis of pre-
diction methods using specific metrics. The relevance of the topic assumes that
the accurate prediction at the financial market may contribute to the financial
benefits for companies, government and other players on stock exchanges. A
comparative analysis of the considered forecasting methods was conducted. It
allows choosing the most appropriate intellectual method for increasing the ef-
ficiency of a specific share price prediction. The further development of the
subject of research includes ensemble-learning methods for neural networks,
feature engineering, collecting a more extensive data set for forecasting.
Keywords: time series, autoregression, smoothing, artificial neural networks,
convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks, decision-making,
multi-criteria approach, stock market, share price.
1 Introduction
The analysis of the behavior of stock prices is characterized by the ambiguous behav-
ior of the process, which is usually affected by many factors (trend, seasonality, the
geopolitical situation, etc.). Forecasting is a key point when making investment deci-
sions. The ability to predict the behavior of stock for making final decisions allows
you to make the best choice which otherwise might be unsuccessful [1].
However, not all investors successfully profit from their investment. This is be-
cause the stock price is constantly fluctuating, and at any moment the price may fall
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
below the price at which it was purchased. Therefore, to predict how the financial
market will behave is one of the most difficult tasks in the economy. In this predic-
tion, it is necessary to consider various factors, such as physical, psychological, ra-
tional and irrational behavior, and the like. All these aspects lead to the conclusion
that stock prices are very volatile and it’s difficult to predict them with a high degree
of accuracy. However, this task is urgent for the world and the whole international
economy, since the possibility of accurate prediction of the value of the stock is
closely linked to the financial gain of the companies, the government or personal
capital and the formation of the more rational financial behavior [2-3].
Accurate predicting the value of assets on the exchange will also help to reduce in-
vestment risk and protect the investment income from the market volatility.
2 Related Works and Problem Statement
A stock market (hereinafter the SM) is an organized market where the securities own-
ers make the agreements of purchase and sale with the members of the SM as inter-
mediaries. The prices of these securities are determined by supply and demand, and
the process of sale is governed by the rules and regulations [4].
There are three different approaches to research and predict the asset prices on the
stock market: technical, technological and fundamental analysis. In this paper, the
combination of the first two approaches was used.
Technical analysis is the study of the dynamics of the main indicators of the market
with the help of graphical methods to predict the future direction of their movement.
A significant number of participants in stock and OTC markets use technical analysis
[5]. A successful trader O. Elder has spoken figuratively on this subject: "Technical
analysis is related to public opinion polls. It is a combination of science and art. The
scientific part consists in using statistical methods and computers; the creative part is
the interpretation of the data."
Technological analysis originated in the era of the application of computer tech-
nology in business and other fields. The success of its application in solving complex
tasks is largely determined by the possibilities of modern information technologies.
The result of technological research is usually a selection of well-defined alternatives.
Therefore, the origins of this analysis, its methodological concepts lie in those disci-
plines that deal with decision-making: Theory of Operations and General Manage-
ment Theory.
The technological analysis includes the ability to analyze, to predict, and to design
decision-making in complex systems of various nature, which are based on the time
series.
A time series can be represented by four components: trend, seasonal variations,
cyclical variations and irregular factors [6]. The classical approach to the construc-
tion of the time series model is to schedule it into several components, each of which
examines specific methods. A trend is a general systematic linear or non-linear com-
ponent that can change over time. The seasonal and cyclical components are periodi-
cally repeating components. These components are not always present simultaneously
in the time series. In our case, there are no seasonal and cyclical components.
3 Basic Concepts and Intellectual Forecasting Methods for
Stock Prices Prediction
Since a prediction based on statistical data collected with the same interval is re-
quired, we are dealing with the time series. Therefore, the time series models will be
considered, and those that suit the task of forecasting data will be selected. The most
popular forecasting time series models are autoregressive models, autoregressive
models with a moving average and models derived from them. Thus, we will focus on
these models [3].
After selecting the specific methods of solving tasks, it is necessary to directly
conduct a prediction of selected characteristics. Constructing the desired models will
be implemented by their gradual complication, in other words, we will move from
simple to complex. In this paper, models and methods are evaluated using MAE and
MSE metrics [1, 7].
MAE measures the average absolute value of errors in a set of predictions for con-
tinuous variables. Assuming that yˆ t is the values of the time series forecast in period
t, the metric is given by (1):
MAE y yˆ .
t
t t (1)
MAE is a linear score, which means that all individual differences are resolved to the
same average. MSE is the difference between the forecast and corresponding ob-
served values squared at each iteration. Because errors rise to the square before they
are averaged, MSE has a relatively high weight to large bias. This means that MSE is
most useful when large errors are particularly undesirable, which is consistent with
the objectives of this work:
MSE y yˆ .
t
t t
2
(2)
Both metrics, MAE and MSE, can take values from 0 to ∞ and do not take the direc-
tion of errors into account. The smaller is the value the index takes, the more accurate
is the forecast.
Smoothing is an important and widespread method of financial market forecasting.
Smoothing methods are used to reduce the influence of random components (random
fluctuations) in time series. They provide an opportunity to obtain more “pure” values
that consist only of deterministic components. Some of the methods are aimed at re-
covering some of the components such as trend.
The authors present 5 smoothing methods typically found when forecasting finan-
cial data: the simple moving average; the weighted moving average; the exponential
moving average; the double exponential moving average; the triple exponential mov-
ing average [8].
The basic assumption of these methods is that the fluctuations in past values repre-
sent random deviations from a smooth curve, which can be extrapolated to create a
forecast.
The autoregressive model is another effective tool for understanding and predicting
future values of the time series, which includes devolution of a variable on values of
series in the past. The importance of ARMA models lies in their flexibility and in
their ability to describe almost all features of the stationary time series. Autoregres-
sive of these models describe how consecutive observations in time affect each other,
while parts of the moving averages capture some possible unobserved upheavals, and
that allows simulating various phenomena that can be observed in a variety of fields
from biology to finance [1-3].
The main idea of autoregression methods is that future values of the time series
cannot deviate to higher or lower than the previous values of the time series whatever
the reasons that caused those deviations are. The paper has presented such models of
autoregression as simple AR (Autoregression Model), ARMA (Autoregressive Mov-
ing Average Model) and ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Model)
[1, 8].
We’ve also proved that Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have a significant ad-
vantage in time series forecasting because they are endowed with the capacity to solve
complex problems of forecasting [2, 9, 10].
The output value of the neural network is defined mathematically as:
q p
yt 0 g y ,
j 0i ij i t (3)
j 1 i 1
where p is the number of the input variables, q is the number of the hidden nodes,
j and ij are the weights, t is the random noise.
As a function of g the following functions can be used [2, 11, 14].
Sigmoidal function:
1
f x . (4)
1 e x
In some literature, this is called a logistic function. This nonlinear function is one of
the most common activation functions for deep learning [12].
Hyperbolic tangent:
e x ex
f x . (5)
e x ex
This function gives the best result for multilayer neural networks compared with the
sigmoidal function. However, the function does not solve the problem of the vanish-
ing gradient. The main benefit offered by this function is that it is centered relative to
zero, which helps in the process of error backpropagation [11].
Softmax function:
e xi
f x . (6)
e
xj
j
The Softmax function is another type of activation function used in neural computing.
It is used to calculate the probability distribution of a vector of real numbers and gets
the value range from 0 to 1.
ReLU function:
f x max0, x . (7)
This function is considered to be the most successful and widely used transfer func-
tion. ReLU shows the best productivity in deep learning compared to sigmoid and
hyperbolic tangent. ReLU is a nearly linear function and therefore preserves the prop-
erties of linear models, which make them easily optimized by methods of gradient
descent. The main advantage of using ReLU in calculus is that this function does not
require computing the exponent or dividing, therefore it guarantees a more rapid exe-
cution [11, 13].
ANN has been and continues to be actively used in the financial markets; one of
the main advantages of ANN that make them so popular as harbingers of the market is
the natural nonlinearity that allows them to learn nonlinear mapping and correlation
of data. ANN also works on data, can be trained in real-time; they are highly adaptive,
easy to retrain in the event of market fluctuations and, finally, do well with data that
contain a certain number of errors [14-17]. ANN mechanism implies minimum par-
ticipation of the analyst in the model shaping, as far as the learning ability is charac-
teristic of all neural network models and learning algorithms adapt (adjust) the
weights according to the structure of the data presented for training.
Consider the most common optimization techniques.
Gradient descent [18]:
xt 1 xt f xt . (8)
According to this method, the steps proportional to the opposite gradient value are
taken for minimizing functions. The parameter to this method is a descent speed α.
When reaching a large value α will possibly make large steps for finding the mini-
mum, but there is a risk of skipping the lowest point. At a very low speed of learning,
the algorithm will move confidently in the direction of the negative gradient, but the
implementation, in this case, will take a long time.
The method of stochastic gradient descent [19]. This is a type of gradient descent,
which handles 1 element for learning at each iteration. So, parameters are updated
even after one iteration, which processed only one value of the variable. This allows
optimizing the target function much faster than ordinary gradient descent. But if the
number of training data is very large, the number of iterations is therefore sufficiently
large.
Mini-batch gradient descent [20]. This is the type of gradient descent, which is
faster than batch and stochastic gradient descent. Let there be the m number of input
data, then in one iteration of this method b