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Only observations at lag one share a noise term. Thus ${\gamma }_0={\sigma }^2(1+{\theta }^2)$, ${\gamma }_{\pm 1}={\sigma }^2\theta$, and every other lag has zero covariance. This tridiagonal finite covariance structure makes the finite-sample innovations of an MA(1) process particularly simple.

The autocovariance of an MA(1) process comes directly from shared noise terms:Work with the zero-mean white noise convention and ${\sigma }^2>0$. Put ${\mathcal{H}}_{t-1}=\mathrm{span}(X_1,\dots ,X_{t-1})$. Suppose the preceding finite-past innovations $U_1,\dots ,U_{t-1}$ are mutually orthogonal. Their triangular relation to the observations means that they span the same finite past. For $s\le t-2$, $U_s$ is a linear combination of $X_1,\dots ,X_s$, so $\mathrm{Cov}(X_t,U_s)=0$. Moreover,Projection onto this orthogonal basis therefore has only its last coefficient nonzero:The residual is orthogonal to the entire preceding span, proving the induction. Expanding its variance givesThe initialization is $U_1=X_1$, ${\phi }_1={\gamma }_0$, ${\lambda }_1=0$ and $U_0=0$. Each finite covariance matrix is a positive-definite matrix: the last observation in any nonzero finite linear combination contains a noise term absent from earlier observations. Thus all the projection denominators are positive. These are the finite-sample innovations of an MA(1) process, requiring no Gaussian assumption.

Substituting the covariances into the recursion givesThe denominator has a positive limit when ${\lambda }_{t-1}\to \lambda \in [-1,1]$. Taking limits gives $(\lambda -\theta )(\theta \lambda -1)=0$. The permitted interval selectsFor $\theta =0$, every coefficient is zero; at $\theta =\pm 1$, the roots coincide. This is the limiting MA(1) innovations coefficient. The limiting innovation variance is correspondingly ${\sigma }^2\max (1,{\theta }^2)$.

For the observed numerical case, ${\gamma }_0=2$ and ${\gamma }_1=-1$. The exact innovation calculations areTherefore the predictor of $X_3$ based on the two observations and its error variance areFor $X_4$, the available information is still only ${\mathcal{H}}_2$. Since its covariances with both $X_1$ and $X_2$ are zero, its orthogonal projection onto that span is zero:This is two-step prediction for an MA(1) process. Applying the next one-step recursion would instead use an observed $X_3$, which is not available here.