Hi!
Thank you very much for your answers. I will try to forecast first
differences and I also started some experiments with forecasting log
transformed data. This mor or less solved he problem with values below
zero.
I think you are right about my model isn't fitted as good as I
thought. I managed to model sales for 4 years very accurate (std dev
of error was like 8% with avg error 0%) with ARIMA(2,1,2)(1,0,2) but
then the forecast I got was below zero. When I changed one parameter
ARIMA(1,1,2)(1,0,2) I've got almost as accurate model but forecasts
for the next 3 months twice as big as the last values. So... something
is definitely wrong.
The problem I've got is that i have to forecast something like 1000
different products, which are in 60 different groups (collections). So
i figured out, that I can forecast those collections and then overlay
forecasts for collections on particular products because percentage
share of products in collection are more likely the same in time.
Thanks to that i can use more sophisticated methods of forecasting (I
wouldn't been able to forecast 500-1000 items in gretl because of lack
in time)...
Once again, thanks for your answers!
2010/9/30 MICHAEL BOLDIN <mboldin(a)temple.edu>:
>forecasting sales in my company and i'm using ARIMA with
regression. Sometimes, even if the model is well adjusted to the data,
when i try to get forecast for 3 months some of the values are below
0... what can i do to set a limit on that variable?
Most likely the model is not as well adjusted as you think. When
forecasting an item such as sales it is usually better to forecast the
percent sales growth (or equivalently the first different in the log
of sales). R2 will be much lower but the forecast standard error is
likely to more realistic. The Elements of Forecasting book by Frank
Diebold gives guidance on this type of forecasting -- i.e. whether
the forecasting model should be in levels or (percent) changes.
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