Computational intelligence approaches, such as artificial neural networks and fuzzy systems, have become popular tools in approximating complicated nonlinear systems and time series forecasting. In Finance applications, there is evidence that these computational intelligence models are able to provide a more accurate forecast given their capacity for capturing nonlinearities and other stylized facts of financial time series. Thus, this paper investigates the hypothesis that the mathematical models of multilayer perception, radial basis function neural networks (NN), and the Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy systems are able to provide a more accurate out-of-sample forecast than the traditional AutoRegressive Moving Average (ARMA) and ARMA Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARMA-GARCH) models. Using a series of Brazilian exchange rate (R$/US$) returns with 15 minutes, 60 minutes, 120 minutes, daily and weekly basis, the one-step-ahead forecast performance is compared. The results indicate that forecast performance is strongly related to the series' frequency, possibly due to nonlinearities effects. Besides, the forecasting evaluation shows that NN models perform better than the ARMA and ARMA-GARCH ones. In the trade strategy based on forecasts, NN models achieved higher returns when compared to a buy-and-hold strategy and to the other models considered in this study.
Forecasting; Nonlinear models; Linear models; Time series; Neural networks; Fuzzy systems
