Predicting Daily Returns of Global Stocks Indices: Neural Networks vs Support Vector Machines

Abstract

Uniqueness in economies and stock markets has given rise to an interesting domain of exploring data mining techniques across global indices. Previously, very few studies have attempted to compare the performance of data mining techniques in diverse markets. The current study adds to the understanding regarding the variations in performance of data mining techniques across the global stock indices. We compared the performance of Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines using accuracy measures Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and R­­­­oot Mean Square Error (RMSE) across seven major stock markets. For prediction purpose, technical analysis has been employed on selected indicators based on daily values of indices spanning a period of 12 years. We created 196 data sets spanning different time periods for model building such as 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 6 years and 12 years for selected seven stock indices. Based on prediction models built using Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines, the findings of the study indicate there is a significant difference, both for MAE and RMSE, across the selected global indices. Also, Mean Absolute Error and Root Mean Square Error of models built using NN were greater than Mean Absolute Error and Root Mean Square Error of models built using SVM.