Single Exponential Smoothing Algorithm: 3.1 Notation
Single Exponential Smoothing Algorithm: 3.1 Notation
Single Exponential Smoothing Algorithm: 3.1 Notation
F
t +1
=F
t
+ (y
t
F
t
)
Until no more observation are available then
F
n+k
=F
n+1
, k 1
Table 3.1: Simple Exponential Smoothing (SES) Algorithm.
3.2 What does Exponential Smoothing Really Do?
If we recursively apply the smoothing equation to F
t +1
, we get:
F
t +1
= F
t
+ (y
t
F
t
)
= [F
t 1
+ (y
t 1
F
t 1
)] + (y
t
[F
t 1
+ (y
t 1
F
t 1
)])
= y
t
+ (1) y
t 1
+(1)
2
F
t 1
,
Now F
t +1
is in terms of y
t
, y
t 1
and F
t 1
. We can repeat this, replacing F
t 1
by F
t 2
+(y
t 2
F
t 2
), to get
F
t +1
is in terms of y
t
, y
t 1
, y
t 2
and F
t 2
. Doing this replacement another t 3 times, we end up with F
t +1
in terms of y
1
, . . . , y
t
and F
1
, and the following equation for F
t +1
:
F
t +1
= y
t
+ (1) y
t 1
+ (1)
2
y
t 2
+ + (1)
t 1
y
1
+(1)
t
F
1
(3.1)
So exponential smoothing forecasts are a weighted sum of all the previous observations.
3.3 Exercises
(1) What is F
t +1
when =0? What happens as increases to 1? What range of values must F
t +1
lie in?
(2) Here is a short time series. Calculate the exponentially smoothed series and make a forecast for the
next value in the sequence, using =0.5 and =0.1:
t y
t
F
t
(for =0.5) error F
t
(for =0.1) error
1 3 3 0 3 0
2 4
3 2
4
(3) Can you make k-step ahead forecasts using exponential smoothing?
(4) Which observation is given the biggest weight in the formula (3.1) for F
t +1
. Which is given the small-
est? Is this sensible?
17 Rozenn Dahyot 2011