Decoding Tomorrow’s Gold Prices: A Comparative Study of GRU and CNN-LSTM in the Iranian Market

With the rising prominence of gold as a lucrative investment avenue in Iran, this research delves into predicting the future price of 18-carat gold. In pursuit of this objective, a comprehensive comparison is conducted between two neural network architectures: the Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) as a single structure and a hybrid model combining Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network (LSTM). The evaluation criteria employed focus on error metrics to gauge the accuracy of price predictions. Results reveal that the CNN-LSTM hybrid neural network exhibits superior performance, showcasing lower error values in predicting the price of 18-carat gold in Iran. Consequently, the chosen model, CNN-LSTM, is employed to forecast the following day's gold prices, providing valuable insights for investors navigating the Iranian market. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on gold investment strategies by highlighting the effectiveness of advanced neural network models in enhancing predictive accuracy.