Multivariate Forecasting of Crude Oil Spot Prices using Neural Networks

Crude oil is a major component in most advanced economies of the world. Accurately predicting and understanding the behavior of crude oil prices is important for economists, analysts, forecasters, and traders, to name a few. The price of crude oil has declined in the past decade and is seeing a phase of stability; but will this stability last? This work is an empirical study on how multivariate analysis may be employed to predict crude oil spot prices using neural networks. The concept of using neural networks showed promising potential. A very simple neural network model was able to perform on par with ARIMA models - the state-of-the-art model in time-series forecasting. Advanced neural network models using larger datasets may be used in the future to extend this proof-of-concept to a full scale framework.