Integrating metaheuristics and Artificial Neural Networks for improved stock price prediction

•Integrating metaheuristics and ANN for improved stock price prediction.•Both topology of ANN and the number of inputs are optimized.•The number of the input variables is reduced to almost its half.•HS-ANN has better generalization ability than GA-ANN model.•Proposed methodologies outperformed both in statistical and financial terms.

Stock market price is one of the most important indicators of a country's economic growth. That's why determining the exact movements of stock market price is considerably regarded. However, complex and uncertain behaviors of stock market make exact determination impossible and hence strong forecasting models are deeply desirable for investors' financial decision making process. This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of using technical indicators, such as simple moving average of close price, momentum close price, etc. in Turkish stock market. To capture the relationship between the technical indicators and the stock market for the period under investigation, hybrid Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models, which consist in exploiting capabilities of Harmony Search (HS) and Genetic Algorithm (GA), are used for selecting the most relevant technical indicators. In addition, this study simultaneously searches the most appropriate number of hidden neurons in hidden layer and in this respect; proposed models mitigate well-known problem of overfitting/underfitting of ANN. The comparison for each proposed model is done in four viewpoints: loss functions, return from investment analysis, buy and hold analysis, and graphical analysis. According to the statistical and financial performance of these models, HS based ANN model is found as a dominant model for stock market forecasting.