Application of Machine Learning Techniques for Forecasting Exchange Rate Returns in Emerging Economies

The annual percentage growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) for developing economies have since a few years consistently outperformed those in developed countries (World Economic Situation and Prospects, 2020). In the same report published by the United Nations, developing economies are projected to further increase their growth to 4% in 2020 and 4.3% in 2021 and in comparison the developed markets only by 2.5%
and 2.7% respectively. In contrast, the International Monetary Fund released their World Economic Outlook update in June 2020 estimating that the emerging economies will increase its real GDP by 5.9% and advanced economies by 4.8%. In other words, “Today, the issue is not whether to invest in emerging markets – but how much to invest in emerging markets.” (Bekaert & Harvey 2017).

(This thesis is not available in full due to confidentiality.)