BDLOB: Bayesian Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Limit Order Books
BDLOB: Bayesian Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Limit Order Books
The paper introduces BDLOB, a Bayesian deep convolutional neural network for predicting short-term price movements from limit order book (LOB) data. By applying dropout variational inference to the DeepLOB architecture, the model not only improves predictive performance through stochastic regularization but also provides uncertainty estimates via Monte Carlo dropout. The authors demonstrate that these uncertainty measures, specifically predictive entropy, can be effectively used for position sizing in trading strategies, leading to higher profits and reduced risk compared to strategies relying solely on softmax probabilities. The model is evaluated on five stocks from the London Stock Exchange over a full year, with millions of observations, showing consistent improvements in accuracy and trading returns. The work is the first to apply Bayesian neural networks to LOB data, highlighting the potential of uncertainty-aware deep learning in high-frequency trading.
Highlights
- 1First application of Bayesian deep learning to limit order book data for price movement prediction.
- 2Demonstrates that dropout variational inference improves predictive performance as a stochastic regularizer.
- 3Uncertainty estimates from Bayesian networks are used for position sizing, avoiding unnecessary trades, and improving profits.
- 4Trading strategies incorporating uncertainty information achieve higher returns with similar risk levels.
- 5Validated on millions of observations across five stocks from the London Stock Exchange.
Methods
- MDropout variational inference (Monte Carlo dropout) to approximate Bayesian neural networks.
- MDeepLOB architecture: convolutional layers, Inception Module, and LSTMs for feature extraction and temporal modeling.
- MTrading strategies: Normal (max softmax), Softmax (threshold on max probability), and Bayesian (position sizing based on predictive entropy).
Results
- RBDLOB achieves F1 score of 0.60 and AUC of 0.811, outperforming CNN (0.48, 0.672) and DeepLOB5 (0.58, 0.803).
- RBayesian trading strategy yields highest cumulative profits and normalized daily profits across test periods.
- RUsing uncertainty information (predictive entropy) for position sizing improves returns without increasing risk.
- RHyperparameter analysis shows threshold α=0.7 and entropy bounds β1=0.1, β2=0.9 balance profit and risk.
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