Hybrid machine learning for stock price prediction in the Moroccan banking sector

Abstract

Analyzing historical stock market data using machine-learning techniques is crucial for data scientists and researchers to optimize stock price prediction models. This study uses machine learning regression algorithms and feature selection methods to optimize a simulated stock price prediction model using real historical data from Bank of Africa, a Moroccan bank. The approach compares multiple supervised regression algorithms, such as linear regression, extreme gradient boosting, ordinary least squared, random forest regressor, a linear least-squares L2-regularized, epsilon-support vector regression, and linear support vector regression. Each of these algorithms is associated with different feature selection algorithms to improve the performance of the prediction model. The analysis results revealed that hybridizing algorithms between the highest score percentiles, univariate linear regression, and linear support vector regression perform better according to the root mean squared error and R2-Score measures. This approach overcomes the problems associated with high-dimensional data by reducing the number of features and improving prediction accuracy.