Application of Neural Networks to an Emerging Financial Market: Forecasting and Trading the Taiwan Stock Index

Abstract

Although there exists some studies which deal with the issues of forecasting stock market index and development of trading strategies, most of the empirical findings are associated with the developed financial markets (e.g., U.S., U.K., and Japan). Currently, many international investment bankers and brokerage firms have major stakes in overseas markets. Given the economic success of Taiwan in the last two decades, the financial markets in this Asian country have attracted considerable global investments. Our study models and predicts the TSE Index using neural networks. Their performance is compared with that of parametric forecasting approaches, namely the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) and random walk. These rapidly growing financial markets are usually characterized by high volatility, relatively smaller capitalization, and less price efficiency, features which may hinder the effectiveness of those forecasting models developed for established markets. The good performance of the PNN suggests that the neural network models are useful in predicting the direction of index returns. Furthermore, PNN has demonstrated a stronger predictive power than both the GMM-Kalman filter and the random walk forecasting models. This superiority is partially attributed to PNN's ability to identify outliers and erroneous data. Compared to the other two parametric techniques examined in this study, PNN does not require any assumption of the underlying probability density functions of the class populations. The trading experiment shows that the PNN-guided trading strategies obtain higher profits than the other investment strategies utilizing the market direction generated by the parametric forecasting methods. In addition, the PNN-guided trading with multiple triggering thresholds is generally better than the one with single triggering thresholds. The multiple threshold version is able to consider the degree of certainty of a particular PNN classification and thereby reduce potential loss in the market.

Note: This is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract.

Keywords: emerging economy, index forecasting, trading strategy, neural networks, generalized gethods of moments (GMM)