Predicting EU Energy Industry Excess Returns on EU Market Index via a Constrained Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

This article introduces an automated procedure to simultaneously select variables and detect outliers in a dynamic linear model using information criteria as objective functions and diagnostic tests as constraints for the distributional properties of errors. A robust scaling method is considered to take into account the sensitiveness of estimates to abnormal data. A genetic algorithm is developed to these purposes. Two examples are presented where models are designed to produce short-term forecasts for the excess returns of the MSCI Europe Energy sector on the MSCI Europe index and a recursive estimation-window is used to shed light on their predictability performances. In the first application the data-set is obtained by a reduction procedure from a very large number of leading macro indicators and financial variables stacked at various lags, while in the second the complete set of 1-month lagged variables is considered. Results show a promising capability to predict excess sector returns through the selection, using the proposed methodology, of most valuable predictors.