Multiple Kernel Learning with Fisher Kernels for High Frequency Currency Prediction

Financially motivated kernels based on EURUSD currency data are constructed from limit order book volumes, commonly used technical analysis methods and canonical market microstructure models—the latter in the form of Fisher kernels. These kernels are used through their incorporation into support vector machines (SVM) to predict the direction of price movement for the currency over multiple time horizons. Multiple kernel learning is used to replicate the signal combination process that trading rules embody when they aggregate multiple sources of financial information. Significant outperformance relative to both the individual SVM and benchmarks is found, along with an indication of which features are the most informative for financial prediction tasks. An average accuracy of 55% is achieved when classifying the direction of price movement into one of three categories for a 200 s predictive time horizon. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2013