Forecasting the Crude Oil Spot Price by Wavelet Neural Networks Using OECD Petroleum Inventory Levels

In this study, a novel forecasting model based on the Wavelet Neural Network (WNN) is proposed to predict the monthly crude oil spot price. In the proposed model, the OECD industrial petroleum inventory level is used as an independent variable, and the Wavelet Neural Network (WNN) is used to explore the nonlinear relationship between inventories and the price. For verification purposes, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil spot price is used for the tested target. Experimental results reveal that the WNN can model the nonlinear relationship between inventories and the price very well. Furthermore, the in-sample and out-of-sample prediction performance also demonstrates that the WNN-based forecasting model can produce more accurate prediction results than other nonlinear and linear models, even when the lengths of the forecast horizon are relatively short or long.