Solved – How to predict weekly or monthly sales from daily time series model

forecastingpythontime series

I've been given daily data and I've trained a SARIMAX time series model in Python so that I can predict daily data if given daily input.

However, I need to forecast on a monthly or weekly level, meaning my input would be in monthly form and not daily input. How do I go about forecasting with my current (daily) model in a different time interval?

Do I need to recreate my model so that it's trained on weekly/monthly data?

Best Answer

Develop your daily model taking into account day-of-the-week, day-of-the-month, lead and lag effects around holidays, level shifts, monthly effects, time trends etc. .

Now forecast out 1 period and generate a family of possible values say 1000.. call that simulation1 allowing for possible pulses to occur. Now do that for period 2 while incorporating increased uncertainty ... then ... do the same for period 30.

Now accumulate all 1000*30 forecasts and then sort them from low to high. Find the 2.5% value and the 97.5% value and you will have 95% confidence limits.

See my response to ARIMA model, daily data, weekly external regressor where I discuss monte carlo simulations and the concept of combining them / aggregating them .