Analysis and classification of technical analysis indicators by Support Vector Machines

Abstract

The search for models which can accurately forecast the market trend has developed over the past decades. Technical indicators and oscillators are the most usually employed inputs in the prediction models. These inputs basically rely on prices and the evolution of the index itself, which may cause some problems like multicolinearity and autocorrelation, in the case of linear models, or overoptimization and noise, in the case of neural networks. This paper proposes filtering the inputs to be employed in the models. To this end, their impact on the forecast will be analysed. A support vector machine will be used to this end, in order to characterize both inputs (indicators and oscillators) and output (market trend). Doing this, it can be assessed whether the relationship between the different inputs and the market trend offers relevant information regarding the contribution of the inputs in the prediction process and whether this contribution remains constant over time. Those inputs will be selected, which obtain more stable forecasts in order to obtain more consistent predictions.

Keywords

• support vector machines
• trend
• stock index
• dow jones industrial average
• technical indicators