Using genetic algorithms to construct a network for financial prediction

Traditional forecasting models such as the Box-Jenkins ARIMA model are almost all based on models that assume a linear relationship amongst variables and cannot approximate the non- linear relationship that exists amongst variables in real-world data such as stock-price data. Artificial neural networks, on the other hand, consist of two or more levels of nonlinearity that have been successfully used to approximate the underlying relationships of time series data. Neural networks however, pose a design problem: their optimum topology and training rule parameters including learning rate and momentum, for the problem at hand need to be determined. In this paper, we use genetic algorithms to determine these design parameters. In general genetic algorithms are an optimization method that find solutions to a problem by an evolutionary process based on natural selection. The genetic algorithm searches through the network parameter space and the neural network learning algorithm evaluates the selected parameters. We then use the optimally configured network to predict the stock market price of a blue-chip company on the UK market.