A continuous time Bayesian network classifier for intraday FX prediction

Abstract

Prediction of foreign exchange (FX) rates is addressed as a binary classification problem in which a continuous time Bayesian network classifier (CTBNC) is developed and used to solve it. An exact algorithm for inference on CTBNC is introduced. The performance of an instance of these classifiers is analysed and compared to that of dynamic Bayesian network by using real tick by tick FX rates. Performance analysis and comparison, based on different metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall and Brier score, evince a predictive power of these models for FX rates at high frequencies. The achieved results also show that the proposed CTBNC is more effective and more efficient than dynamic Bayesian network classifier. In particular, it allows to perform high frequency prediction of FX rates in cases where dynamic Bayesian networks-based models are computationally intractable.