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Journals / Çukurova Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi / 2026 / Cilt: 35

FINANCIAL DISTRESS PREDICTION ON BORSA İSTANBUL: MACHINE LEARNING AND SHAP ANALYSIS

BORSA İSTANBUL’DA FİNANSAL SIKINTI TAHMİNİ: MAKİNE ÖĞRENMESİ VE SHAP ANALİZİ

Metin Borak(ÇUKUROVA ÜNİVERSİTESİ, İKTİSADİ VE İDARİ BİLİMLER FAKÜLTESİ, İŞLETME BÖLÜMÜ)0000-0002-8748-409X
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Publication Date
2026-10-28
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AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

The SHAP results indicate that capital structure, liquidity, and profitability indicators are particularly prominent in the predictions.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:Predicting financial distress in advance is important for enabling corporate managers, investors, and market regulators to make timely and informed decisions in response to potential risks.
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Key Findings & Data:To this end, the performances of six classification algorithms are compared, and the algorithm with the highest predictive performance is identified.
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Conclusion & Impact:The SHAP results indicate that capital structure, liquidity, and profitability indicators are particularly prominent in the predictions.
🔬Design:Modeling & Simulation
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:finansal sıkıntı tahmini · makine öğrenmesi · rastgele orman

Abstract

Predicting financial distress in advance is important for enabling corporate managers, investors, and market regulators to make timely and informed decisions in response to potential risks. This study aims to predict the financial distress status of manufacturing firms listed on Borsa İstanbul one year in advance. To this end, the performances of six classification algorithms are compared, and the algorithm with the highest predictive performance is identified. The analysis includes 2,810 observations from 251 firms, and financial distress is defined according to the Zmijewski score. The algorithms compared are logistic regression, CART, random forest, support vector machine, k-nearest neighbors, and neural network. The model development and test periods are constructed by preserving the temporal order, while hyperparameters are selected using expanding-window time-series cross-validation. Given the class imbalance, PR-AUC is used as the primary model selection criterion, and the predictions of the selected algorithm are explained using SHAP. The findings show that random forest produces the highest average PR-AUC during validation. In the test period, this algorithm achieves a ROC-AUC of 0.873, a PR-AUC of 0.385, and a balanced accuracy of 0.747, correctly identifying 62.5% of financially distressed observations. These findings hold in a robustness analysis in which observations with missing values are excluded rather than imputed, where random forest is again selected and performance values remain similar. The SHAP results indicate that capital structure, liquidity, and profitability indicators are particularly prominent in the predictions. Overall, the results suggest that machine learning methods can contribute to the early prediction of financial distress.

Özet

Finansal sıkıntının önceden tahmin edilmesi; firma yöneticilerinin, yatırımcıların ve düzenleyici kurumların olası risklere karşı zamanında sağlıklı kararlar alabilmeleri açısından önem taşımaktadır. Bu çalışma, Borsa İstanbul’da işlem gören imalat firmalarının finansal sıkıntı durumunu bir yıl önceden tahmin etmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu kapsamda altı sınıflandırma algoritmasının performansı karşılaştırılmakta ve en yüksek tahmin performansını gösteren algoritma belirlenmektedir. Analizler, 251 firmaya ait 2.810 gözlemi içermekte; finansal sıkıntı, Zmijewski skoruna göre tanımlanmaktadır. Çalışmada lojistik regresyon, CART, rastgele orman, destek vektör makinesi, k-en yakın komşu ve yapay sinir ağı algoritmaları karşılaştırılmaktadır. Model geliştirme ve test dönemleri, zaman sırası korunarak oluşturulmakta; hiperparametre seçiminde genişleyen pencereli ileri-zaman çapraz doğrulama kullanılmaktadır. Sınıf dengesizliği nedeniyle temel seçim ölçütü olarak PR-AUC esas alınmakta ve seçilen algoritmanın tahminleri SHAP yöntemiyle açıklanmaktadır. Çalışmanın bulgularına göre rastgele orman, doğrulama sürecinde en yüksek ortalama PR-AUC değerini üretmektedir. Bu algoritma test döneminde 0,873 ROC-AUC, 0,385 PR-AUC ve 0,747 dengeli doğruluk değerine ulaşmakta ve finansal sıkıntılı gözlemlerin %62,5’ini doğru belirlemektedir. Eksik değer içeren gözlemlerin dışlandığı duyarlılık analizinde de aynı algoritma seçilmekte ve benzer performans değerleri elde edilmektedir. SHAP bulguları, tahminlerde özellikle sermaye yapısı, likidite ve karlılık göstergelerinin öne çıktığını göstermektedir. Bu sonuçlar, makine öğrenmesi yöntemlerinin finansal sıkıntının önceden tahmin edilmesine katkı sağlayabileceğini göstermektedir.

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Cite This Article

Borak, M. (2026). FINANCIAL DISTRESS PREDICTION ON BORSA İSTANBUL: MACHINE LEARNING AND SHAP ANALYSIS. Çukurova Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, Cilt: 35. https://doi.org/10.35379/cusosbil.2024659

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