M6 Conference

The Future of Forecasting and the M6 Conference ran on the 6th and 7th of November, 2023 at the Harvard Club of New York, in New York City, USA. This very well attended conference covered many critical and emerging aspects of forecasting, including the role of AI and large language models, forecasting for the new era and the changing role of the forecaster, how to best measure the performance of your forecasts, and the value of the results from forecasting competitions in practice. In particular, the findings of the M6 financial forecasting competition were presented during the Conference.

The M6 Forecasting Competition took place from February 2022 to February 2023, which brought together a diverse range of participants from around the globe to forecast financial (stock and ETF) prices and explore the relationship between forecast accuracy and investment returns.

An amazing number of around 100,000 submissions from more than 50 countries were recorded during the yearlong competition, providing a valuable platform for forecasting experts, researchers, and practitioners to showcase their skills, exchange knowledge and techniques, contribute to the advancement of the field and compete for the 300,000USD in prize money generously provided by the M6 sponsors.

M6 competition

The M6 competition’s success highlights the critical role of accurate forecasting and prediction in our rapidly changing world, and its significance has been recognized by industry leaders such who also served as sponsors and co-organizers as Google, Meta, J.P. Morgan, International Institute of Forecasters, Kinaxis, Intech, causaLens, SaS, ForecastPro, Erasmus School of Economics, Forecasting and Strategic Unit of Athens Greece, INSEAD, MOFC and the University of Nicosia

Professor Spyros Makridakis and the other organizers of the M6 competition elaborated on the winning methods, and their practical implications. The conference program also included talks from distinguished speakers from the major software/technology companies, as well as known academics from top-level universities. It featured presentations of the three most accurate methods of the M6 Competition by the developers themselves also discussed how their methods could be implemented by others.

Many of the 63, M6 Competition winners attended the conference, some presented their winning methods and those present were awarded their prizes during the award ceremony.

During the award ceremony, Professor Makridakis was honored for his immerse contribution to the world of forecasting. Commemorative speeches were given by Antonis Polemitis, the CEO of the University of Nicosia; Anil Gaba from INSEAD; Chris Fry from Google and Michael Gilliland, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Applied Forecasting.

Finally, the program included two panel discussions that focused on the organizational aspects of forecasting, the future of forecasting and the upcoming M7 Competition.

Day 1 PRESENTATIONS

1. S. Makridakis, F. Petropoulos
2. Spyros Makridakis
3. Fotios Petropoulos
4. Nitzi Roehl
5. Pablo Montero
6. Jeff Baker
7. Ruben Crevits
8. Anil Gaba
9. Norman Swanson
10. Ross Hollyman
11. Jim Hoover, Elaine Deschamps
12. Mike Gilliland

Day 2 PRESENTATIONS

1. Johan Robette
2. Nada Sanders
3. Robert Boute
4. Malvina Marchese
5. Naftali Cohen
6. Chris Fry
7. Filip Stanek
8. Daniel Weitzenfeld
9. Colin Catlin