Hidden Markov Model for Stock Trading

Nguyet Nguyen
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Nguyet Nguyen: Department of Mathematics & Statistics at Youngstown State University, 1 University Plaza, Youngstown, OH 44555, USA

IJFS, 2018, vol. 6, issue 2, 1-17

Abstract: Hidden Markov model (HMM) is a statistical signal prediction model, which has been widely used to predict economic regimes and stock prices. In this paper, we introduce the application of HMM in trading stocks (with S&P 500 index being an example) based on the stock price predictions. The procedure starts by using four criteria, including the Akaike information, the Bayesian information, the Hannan Quinn information, and the Bozdogan Consistent Akaike Information, in order to determine an optimal number of states for the HMM. The selected four-state HMM is then used to predict monthly closing prices of the S&P 500 index. For this work, the out-of-sample R OS 2 , and some other error estimators are used to test the HMM predictions against the historical average model. Finally, both the HMM and the historical average model are used to trade the S&P 500. The obtained results clearly prove that the HMM outperforms this traditional method in predicting and trading stocks.

Keywords: hidden Markov model; stock prices; observations; states; regimes; predictions; trading; out-of-sample R 2; model validation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F2 F3 F41 F42 G1 G2 G3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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