M5 Forecasting - Accuracy：Description

Introduction

Welcome to an extensive Exploratory Data Analysis for the 5th Makridakis forecasting competitions (M5)! This notebook will grow over the coming days and weeks into a deep dive of all the relevant aspects of this challenge. Here’s all you need to know to get started:

Some Background: the Makridakis competitions (or M-competitions), organised by forecasting expert Spyros Makridakis, aim to provide a better understanding and advancement of forecasting methodology by comparing the performance of different methods in solving a well-defined, real-world problem. The first M-competition was held in 1982. The forth competition (M4) ran in 2018 and featured “100,000 time series and 61 forecasting methods” (source in link). According to forecasting researcher and practitioner Rob Hyndman the M-competitions “have had an enormous influence on the field of forecasting. They focused attention on what models produced good forecasts, ra