Prediction of international copper prices with grey metabolism Markov chain method

Grey prediction is suitable for such kinds of system objective with few data, short time and little fluctuation. Markov chain is just suitable for predicting stochastic fluctuating dynamic process. In connecting with the non-linear fluctuation characteristic of international copper prices, a grey metabolism Markov chain (GMMC) method is proposed for the middle and long term prediction of the prices. The prediction effect of the new method is examined with the international copper prices of 1990-2011 as a testing data sequence. Experiment results show that the prediction effect of the new model is better than GM(1, 1) model and grey Markov chain(GMC) model. It is indicated that the GMMC method has a quite high application value for international copper price prediction without considering the affect of economic crisis.