Computer applications in the context of financial speculation

Prediction of various market indicators is an important issue in finance. This can be accomplished through computer models and related applications to finance, and in particular through Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) which have been used in stock market prediction and exchange rates during the last decade. The prediction of financial values (such as stock/exchange rate index as well as daily direction of change in the index) with neural networks has been investigated and, in some applications, it turned out that artificial neural networks have both great advantages and some limitations for learning the data patterns and predicting future values of the financial phenomenon under analysis. In this paper we analyze the particular financial market called FOREX and the way ANNs can make affordable predictions on the evolution of exchange rates between currencies.