Impact of Starting Outlier Removal on Accuracy of Time Series Forecasting

The presence of an outlier at the starting point of a univariate time series negatively influences the forecasting accuracy. The starting outlier is effectively removed only by making it equal to the second time point value. The forecasting accuracy is significantly improved after the removal. The favorable impact of the starting outlier removal on the time series forecasting accuracy is strong. It is the least favorable for time series with exponential rising. In the worst case of a time series, on average only 7 % to 11 % forecasts after the starting outlier removal are worse than they would be without the removal.