Research on Machine Learning-based Prediction of Coffee Futures Prices

Coffee is one of the major agricultural commodities in world trade, and its futures are vital tools in the global capital market. The continued vitality of the coffee market and substantial price fluctuations have increased hedging demands among market participants. Consequently, predicting future price trends of coffee futures to yield excess returns has become a focal point in the field of quantitative investment. Machine learning methods are increasingly being applied in the field of quantitative investment due to their performance advantages in complex data classification and regression. This paper analyzes the current state of the coffee futures market and the factors influencing its prices. In this study, five market indicators and one technical indicator, the bias rate, were selected as inputs. The closing price for the subsequent day, along with short-term (50 days) and long-term (200 days) price trends, were forecasted using two machine learning techniques: the linear regression model and the random forest model. The results demonstrated that, of the two predictive models utilized in this study, the random forest model performed better concerning regression prediction evaluation indices. When predicting short-term (50-day) price trends, the linear regression model exhibited superior performance. However, both models revealed significant errors in predicting long-term (200-day) price trends.