IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/minecn/v38y2025i1d10.1007_s13563-024-00437-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Short term forecasting of base metals prices using a LightGBM and a LightGBM - ARIMA ensemble

Author

Listed:
  • Konstantinos Oikonomou

    (National Technical University of Athens)

  • Dimitris Damigos

    (National Technical University of Athens)

Abstract

Base metals are key materials for various industrial sectors such as electronics, construction, manufacturing, etc. Their selling price is important both for the profitability of the mining and metallurgical companies that produce and trade them, as well as for the countries whose economies rely on their exports or tax revenues as a means for national income. Prices are also critical for companies that use base metals as inputs to fabricate end products. The prediction of prices’ future movements can serve as a tool for risk mitigation and better budget planning. In this study, the logarithmic returns of base metals are forecasted using an autoregressive Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) as well as an ensemble comprising the aforementioned algorithm and a classical time series forecasting model (i.e., ARIMA). The two models are then compared to three simpler benchmark models, namely a global mean model, an exponential smoothing model and an ARIMA model. When comparing using RMSE, the autoregressive LightGBM model outperformed the three univariate benchmark models (and the ensemble) for forecasting 6 months ahead for aluminum and nickel returns, while copper and zinc returns were forecasted better by the ensemble. Neither of the proposed models performed better than an ARIMA model when it comes to forecasting lead and tin returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Konstantinos Oikonomou & Dimitris Damigos, 2025. "Short term forecasting of base metals prices using a LightGBM and a LightGBM - ARIMA ensemble," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 38(1), pages 37-49, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:minecn:v:38:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s13563-024-00437-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s13563-024-00437-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13563-024-00437-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13563-024-00437-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Armstrong, J. Scott, 2007. "Significance tests harm progress in forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 321-327.
    2. Peter R. Winters, 1960. "Forecasting Sales by Exponentially Weighted Moving Averages," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 324-342, April.
    3. Díaz, Juan D. & Hansen, Erwin & Cabrera, Gabriel, 2020. "A random walk through the trees: Forecasting copper prices using decision learning methods," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    4. Dooley, Gillian & Lenihan, Helena, 2005. "An assessment of time series methods in metal price forecasting," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 208-217, September.
    5. Jan Lust, 2019. "The rise of a capitalist subsistence economy in Peru," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 780-795, April.
    6. Hyndman, Rob J. & Khandakar, Yeasmin, 2008. "Automatic Time Series Forecasting: The forecast Package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i03).
    7. Radetzki,Marian & WÃ¥rell,Linda, 2020. "A Handbook of Primary Commodities in the Global Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108970914, June.
    8. Liu, Chang & Hu, Zhenhua & Li, Yan & Liu, Shaojun, 2017. "Forecasting copper prices by decision tree learning," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 427-434.
    9. Pincheira Brown, Pablo & Hardy, Nicolás, 2019. "Forecasting base metal prices with the Chilean exchange rate," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 256-281.
    10. Sánchez Lasheras, Fernando & de Cos Juez, Francisco Javier & Suárez Sánchez, Ana & Krzemień, Alicja & Riesgo Fernández, Pedro, 2015. "Forecasting the COMEX copper spot price by means of neural networks and ARIMA models," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 37-43.
    11. Rossen, Anja, 2015. "What are metal prices like? Co-movement, price cycles and long-run trends," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 255-276.
    12. Tashman, Leonard J., 2000. "Out-of-sample tests of forecasting accuracy: an analysis and review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 437-450.
    13. Clinton Watkins & Michael McAleer, 2004. "Econometric modelling of non‐ferrous metal prices," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 651-701, December.
    14. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B., 2006. "Another look at measures of forecast accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 679-688.
    15. Petropoulos, Fotios & Svetunkov, Ivan, 2020. "A simple combination of univariate models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 110-115.
    16. Du, Pei & Wang, Jianzhou & Yang, Wendong & Niu, Tong, 2020. "Point and interval forecasting for metal prices based on variational mode decomposition and an optimized outlier-robust extreme learning machine," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    17. Ahmed, Maruf Yakubu & Sarkodie, Samuel Asumadu, 2021. "COVID-19 pandemic and economic policy uncertainty regimes affect commodity market volatility," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    18. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "M5 accuracy competition: Results, findings, and conclusions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1346-1364.
    19. Holt, Charles C., 2004. "Author's retrospective on 'Forecasting seasonals and trends by exponentially weighted moving averages'," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 11-13.
    20. Chen, Yanhui & He, Kaijian & Zhang, Chuan, 2016. "A novel grey wave forecasting method for predicting metal prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 323-331.
    21. Mingzhu Tang & Qi Zhao & Steven X. Ding & Huawei Wu & Linlin Li & Wen Long & Bin Huang, 2020. "An Improved LightGBM Algorithm for Online Fault Detection of Wind Turbine Gearboxes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-16, February.
    22. Kriechbaumer, Thomas & Angus, Andrew & Parsons, David & Rivas Casado, Monica, 2014. "An improved wavelet–ARIMA approach for forecasting metal prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 32-41.
    23. Friedman, Jerome H., 2002. "Stochastic gradient boosting," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 367-378, February.
    24. Holt, Charles C., 2004. "Forecasting seasonals and trends by exponentially weighted moving averages," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 5-10.
    25. Jonathan M. Chipili, 2016. "Copper Price and Exchange Rate Dynamics in Zambia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 876-886, August.
    26. M. J. Lawrence & R. H. Edmundson & M. J. O'Connor, 1986. "The Accuracy of Combining Judgemental and Statistical Forecasts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(12), pages 1521-1532, December.
    27. Khoshalan, Hasel Amini & Shakeri, Jamshid & Najmoddini, Iraj & Asadizadeh, Mostafa, 2021. "Forecasting copper price by application of robust artificial intelligence techniques," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    28. Esma Kahraman & Ozlem Akay, 2023. "Comparison of exponential smoothing methods in forecasting global prices of main metals," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 36(3), pages 427-435, September.
    29. Chen, Mei-Hsiu, 2010. "Understanding world metals prices--Returns, volatility and diversification," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 127-140, September.
    30. Alam, Md Rafayet & Forhad, Md. Abdur Rahman & Sah, Nilesh B., 2022. "Consumption- and speculation-led change in demand for oil and the response of base metals: A Markov-switching approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    31. Foo, Nam & Bloch, Harry & Salim, Ruhul, 2018. "The optimisation rule for investment in mining projects," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 123-132.
    32. Radetzki,Marian & WÃ¥rell,Linda, 2020. "A Handbook of Primary Commodities in the Global Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108841542, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kwas, Marek & Paccagnini, Alessia & Rubaszek, Michał, 2021. "Common factors and the dynamics of industrial metal prices. A forecasting perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Henriques, Irene & Sadorsky, Perry, 2023. "Forecasting rare earth stock prices with machine learning," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).
    3. Rubaszek, Michał & Karolak, Zuzanna & Kwas, Marek, 2020. "Mean-reversion, non-linearities and the dynamics of industrial metal prices. A forecasting perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    4. Cifuentes, Sebastián & Cortazar, Gonzalo & Ortega, Hector & Schwartz, Eduardo S., 2020. "Expected prices, futures prices and time-varying risk premiums: The case of copper," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Ye, Lili & Xie, Naiming & Boylan, John E. & Shang, Zhongju, 2024. "Forecasting seasonal demand for retail: A Fourier time-varying grey model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 1467-1485.
    6. Bielak, Łukasz & Grzesiek, Aleksandra & Janczura, Joanna & Wyłomańska, Agnieszka, 2021. "Market risk factors analysis for an international mining company. Multi-dimensional, heavy-tailed-based modelling," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    7. Theodosiou, Marina, 2011. "Forecasting monthly and quarterly time series using STL decomposition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1178-1195, October.
    8. Jialu Ling & Ziyu Zhong & Helin Wei, 2025. "Copper Price Forecasting Based on Improved Least Squares Support Vector Machine with Butterfly Optimization Algorithm," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 65(4), pages 1795-1817, April.
    9. Trond Husby & Hans Visser, 2021. "Short- to medium-run forecasting of mobility with dynamic linear models," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(28), pages 871-902.
    10. Zhou, Jianguo & Xu, Zhongtian, 2023. "A novel three-stage hybrid learning paradigm based on a multi-decomposition strategy, optimized relevance vector machine, and error correction for multi-step forecasting of precious metal prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    11. Zhang, Hong & Nguyen, Hoang & Vu, Diep-Anh & Bui, Xuan-Nam & Pradhan, Biswajeet, 2021. "Forecasting monthly copper price: A comparative study of various machine learning-based methods," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    12. Su, Chi-Wei & Wang, Xiao-Qing & Zhu, Haotian & Tao, Ran & Moldovan, Nicoleta-Claudia & Lobonţ, Oana-Ramona, 2020. "Testing for multiple bubbles in the copper price: Periodically collapsing behavior," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    13. Khoshalan, Hasel Amini & Shakeri, Jamshid & Najmoddini, Iraj & Asadizadeh, Mostafa, 2021. "Forecasting copper price by application of robust artificial intelligence techniques," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Li, Ning & Li, Jiaojiao & Wang, Qizhou & Yan, Dairong & Wang, Liguan & Jia, Mingtao, 2024. "A novel copper price forecasting ensemble method using adversarial interpretive structural model and sparrow search algorithm," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    15. Meira, Erick & Cyrino Oliveira, Fernando Luiz & de Menezes, Lilian M., 2022. "Forecasting natural gas consumption using Bagging and modified regularization techniques," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    16. Ewees, Ahmed A. & Elaziz, Mohamed Abd & Alameer, Zakaria & Ye, Haiwang & Jianhua, Zhang, 2020. "Improving multilayer perceptron neural network using chaotic grasshopper optimization algorithm to forecast iron ore price volatility," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Liu, Qing & Liu, Min & Zhou, Hanlu & Yan, Feng, 2022. "A multi-model fusion based non-ferrous metal price forecasting," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    18. Fernandez, Viviana & Pastén-Henríquez, Boris & Tapia-Griñen, Pablo & Wagner, Rodrigo, 2023. "Commodity prices under the threat of operational disruptions: Labor strikes at copper mines," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    19. Tapia, Carlos & Coulton, Jeff & Saydam, Serkan, 2020. "Using entropy to assess dynamic behaviour of long-term copper price," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Pantelis Agathangelou & Demetris Trihinas & Ioannis Katakis, 2020. "A Multi-Factor Analysis of Forecasting Methods: A Study on the M4 Competition," Data, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-24, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:minecn:v:38:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s13563-024-00437-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.