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Agriculture commodity price forecasts have long been important for a variety of market players. The study we conducted aims to address this difficulty by examining the weekly wholesale price index of green grams in the Chinese market. The index covers a ten-year period, from January 1, 2010, to January 3, 2020, and has significant economic implications.

In order to address the nonlinear patterns present in the price time series, we investigate the nonlinear auto-regressive neural network as the forecast model. This modeling technique is able to combine a variety of basic nonlinear functions to approximate more complex nonlinear characteristics. Specifically, we examine prediction performance that corresponds to several configurations across data splitting ratios, hidden neuron and delay counts, and model estimation approaches.

Our model turns out to be rather simple and yields forecasts with good stability and accuracy. Relative root mean square errors throughout training, validation and testing are specifically 4.34, 4.71 and 3.98%, respectively. The results of benchmark research show that the neural network produces statistically considerably better performance when compared to other machine learning models and classic time-series econometric methods.

Utilizing our findings as independent technical price forecasts would be one use. Alternatively, policy research and fresh insights into price patterns might be achieved by combining them with other (basic) prediction outputs.

Forecasts of commodity prices are vital issues to market participants and policy makers. Those of corn are of no exception, considering its strategic importance. In the present study, the authors assess the forecast problem for the weekly wholesale price index of yellow corn in China during January 1, 2010–January 10, 2020 period.

The authors employ the nonlinear auto-regressive neural network as the forecast tool and evaluate forecast performance of different model settings over algorithms, delays, hidden neurons and data splitting ratios in arriving at the final model.

The final model is relatively simple and leads to accurate and stable results. Particularly, it generates relative root mean square errors of 1.05%, 1.08% and 1.03% for training, validation and testing, respectively.

Through the analysis, the study shows usefulness of the neural network technique for commodity price forecasts. The results might serve as technical forecasts on a standalone basis or be combined with other fundamental forecasts for perspectives of price trends and corresponding policy analysis.

For policymakers and participants of financial markets, predictions of trading volumes of financial indices are important issues. This study aims to address such a prediction problem based on the CSI300 nearby futures by using high-frequency data recorded each minute from the launch date of the futures to roughly two years after constituent stocks of the futures all becoming shortable, a time period witnessing significantly increased trading activities.

In order to answer questions as follows, this study adopts the neural network for modeling the irregular trading volume series of the CSI300 nearby futures: are the research able to utilize the lags of the trading volume series to make predictions; if this is the case, how far can the predictions go and how accurate can the predictions be; can this research use predictive information from trading volumes of the CSI300 spot and first distant futures for improving prediction accuracy and what is the corresponding magnitude; how sophisticated is the model; and how robust are its predictions?

The results of this study show that a simple neural network model could be constructed with 10 hidden neurons to robustly predict the trading volume of the CSI300 nearby futures using 1–20 min ahead trading volume data. The model leads to the root mean square error of about 955 contracts. Utilizing additional predictive information from trading volumes of the CSI300 spot and first distant futures could further benefit prediction accuracy and the magnitude of improvements is about 1–2%. This benefit is particularly significant when the trading volume of the CSI300 nearby futures is close to be zero. Another benefit, at the cost of the model becoming slightly more sophisticated with more hidden neurons, is that predictions could be generated through 1–30 min ahead trading volume data.

The results of this study could be used for multiple purposes, including designing financial index trading systems and platforms, monitoring systematic financial risks and building financial index price forecasting.