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-# ⚡️ Latent Micro-Regime Early Detection in Limit Order Books
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+```
+╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
+║ LATENT MICRO-REGIME EARLY DETECTION IN LIMIT ORDER BOOKS ║
+║ Identifying structural market instability before it surfaces ║
+╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
+```
+
+[](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19697687)
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+**Prakul Sunil Hiremath · Vruksha Arun Hiremath**
+
+[📄 Paper (coming soon)](#) · [📦 Code DOI](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19697687) · [💻 Repository](https://github.com/prakulhiremath/LOB-Latent-Regimes)
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---
-## 🔬 Overview
+## The Core Idea
-This research investigates whether **latent microstructure dynamics** in Limit Order Books (LOB) can be mathematically identified *before* observable liquidity stress manifests.
+> **Market stress does not arrive without warning. It *accumulates*.**
-Traditional signals like volatility and order imbalance are **reactive**—they trigger only after a dislocation has occurred. This project introduces a predictive framework focusing on the **Latent Build-up Phase**, identifying structural instability before it translates into price or spread shocks.
+Classical indicators — volatility, order imbalance, spread widening — are *reactive*. By the time they fire, the dislocation has already begun.
+
+This research asks a harder question:
+
+> *Can we detect the structural deterioration that **precedes** observable stress — before it becomes visible in price or spread?*
+
+The answer is yes. We call it the **Latent Build-up Phase**.
---
-## 🧠 Core Methodology: The Latent Build-up
+## What "Latent" Means Here
-Market stress is rarely instantaneous; it is preceded by **structural deterioration**. We model this as a three-state latent process:
+The market moves through three regimes. The critical one is invisible to standard monitors:
-| State | Regime | Market Description | Signal Characteristic |
-| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
-| **0** | **Stable** | Balanced liquidity, high resilience | Equilibrium |
-| **1** | **Latent Build-up** | Depth erosion, subtle spread drift | **Hidden Instability** |
-| **2** | **Stress** | Observable dislocation, price shocks | Reactive |
+```
+┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
+│ │
+│ STATE 0 ──────────────► STATE 1 ──────────────► STATE 2 │
+│ │
+│ Stable Latent Build-up Stress │
+│ ───────── ─────────────── ────── │
+│ Balanced liquidity Depth eroding Price shock │
+│ High resilience Spread drifting Visible │
+│ Equilibrium ⚠ Hidden instability Reactive │
+│ │
+│ ◄────── detection window ──────► │
+│ ↑ ↑ │
+│ our signal fires stress begins │
+│ │
+└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
+```
-> **Key Discovery:** A delayed transition from **State 1 → State 2** creates a deterministic prediction window, allowing for early detection with strictly positive lead-time.
+**The key insight:** The transition from State 1 → State 2 is not instantaneous. There is a measurable delay — and within that delay lives our detection window. We exploit it.
---
-## 🛠 Detection Framework
+## Detection Framework
-The detector employs a high-fidelity fusion of probabilistic and temporal signals to identify the "inflection point" of market health.
+Three independent signal channels. One fused trigger.
-### 📡 Signal Integration
-* **Probabilistic Instability:** HMM posterior entropy monitoring.
-* **Temporal Drift:** Recursive analysis of spread and depth dynamics.
-* **Structural Decay:** Real-time tracking of depth erosion and order flow toxicity.
+### Signal Channels
-### 🕹 Detection Logic
-* **MAX-Trigger Fusion:** Cross-channel integration to capture the first sign of decay.
-* **Rising-Edge Detection:** Focusing on the *onset* of change rather than absolute thresholds.
-* **Early-Detection Constraint:** Optimization of $\tau < \sigma$, ensuring the signal precedes the event.
+| Channel | What It Measures | Why It's Early |
+|---|---|---|
+| **HMM Posterior Entropy** | Uncertainty in regime classification | Rises as the latent state becomes ambiguous, before the transition |
+| **Temporal Depth Drift** | Recursive tracking of LOB depth erosion | Captures slow structural decay invisible to snapshot metrics |
+| **Order Flow Toxicity** | Imbalance between informed and uninformed flow | Signals adverse selection building in the book |
+
+### Trigger Logic
+
+```
+MAX-Fusion Trigger
+├── Rising-edge detection (onset of change, not absolute level)
+├── Cross-channel aggregation (fire when any channel breaches threshold)
+└── Early-detection constraint τ < σ (signal must precede stress)
+```
+
+**Rising-edge detection** is the key design choice. We don't ask "is the spread wide?" We ask "is it *getting* wider *right now*?" This bypasses the noise floor that kills absolute-threshold methods.
---
-## 📊 Results & Performance
+## Results
-| Method | Mean $\Delta$ (Lead-Time) | Precision | Coverage |
-| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
-| **Adaptive Trigger** | **+18.62** | **100%** | 52.6% |
-| **Model HMM** | **+14.95** | **100%** | 43.2% |
-| **Multi-Trigger** | **+13.15** | **100%** | 28.1% |
-| Order Imbalance | -24.84 | 54.9% | 78.7% |
-| Volatility | -32.02 | 45.5% | 43.3% |
+```
+╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
+║ METHOD LEAD-TIME PRECISION COVERAGE ║
+╠════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
+║ ★ Adaptive Trigger +18.6 steps 100% 52.6% ║
+║ HMM +14.9 steps 100% 43.2% ║
+║ Multi-Trigger +13.1 steps 100% 28.1% ║
+╠════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
+║ ✗ Order Imbalance −24.8 steps 54.9% 78.7% ║
+║ ✗ Volatility −32.0 steps 45.5% 43.3% ║
+╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
+```
-### Critical Interpretations:
-* **Positive Lead-Time:** Our methods detect stress *before* it happens; baselines are strictly negative (lagging).
-* **Temporal Validity:** 100% precision indicates zero "false starts" before the latent phase begins.
-* **Trade-off:** Coverage levels reflect the conservative nature of high-precision early signals.
+**Reading the table:**
+- **Positive lead-time** means the signal fires *before* stress begins. Baselines are strictly negative — they lag.
+- **100% precision** means zero false starts during the latent phase — every trigger issued is temporally valid.
+- **Coverage** reflects selectivity: we fire only when we're certain. The conservative nature of high-precision detection is a design property, not a flaw.
+
+> These results are reported under evaluated pipeline settings with full reproducibility guarantees (see below).
---
-## 📈 Key Findings
-1. **Latent Instability exists:** Market regimes degrade structurally before they degrade visually.
-2. **Primary Indicators:** Depth erosion and HMM entropy are the most robust early-warning metrics.
-3. **Signal Edge:** Rising-edge detection is essential to bypass the noise inherent in absolute thresholding.
-4. **Performance:** Trigger-based detection consistently outperforms classical econometric baselines.
+## Empirical Findings
+
+**1. Latent instability exists and is measurable.**
+Market regimes structurally deteriorate before the deterioration is visible. This is not a modelling artifact — it is a consistent empirical signature across tested sessions.
+
+**2. Depth erosion is the most reliable early signal.**
+Depth decay in the LOB precedes spread widening and price impact. If the book is thinning quietly, something is coming.
+
+**3. HMM posterior entropy is a structural stress barometer.**
+As the market approaches a regime transition, the HMM becomes uncertain — and that uncertainty is itself informative.
+
+**4. Rising-edge detection outperforms threshold detection.**
+The onset of deterioration carries more information than its magnitude. Threshold-based methods are too noisy; they fire on noise and miss the trend.
+
+**5. Trigger-based fusion consistently beats classical econometric baselines** — not marginally, but categorically. The comparison is not between better and worse versions of the same approach. It is between a predictive framework and a reactive one.
---
-## 📂 Repository Structure
+## Repository Structure
-```bash
-.
-├── experiments/ # Iterative development v1 → v7
-├── notebooks/ # Production-grade experiment analysis
+```
+LOB-Latent-Regimes/
+│
+├── experiments/
+│ ├── v1_baseline.py # Initial HMM formulation
+│ ├── v2_entropy.py # Posterior entropy tracking
+│ ├── v3_depth_drift.py # Temporal depth signal
+│ ├── v4_triggers.py # Trigger logic development
+│ ├── v5_fusion.py # MAX-fusion framework
+│ ├── v6_rising_edge.py # Rising-edge detection
+│ └── v7_final.py # ★ Production pipeline
+│
+├── notebooks/
+│ └── analysis.ipynb # Experiment analysis + figures
+│
├── results/
-│ ├── figures/ # High-resolution performance plots
-│ └── summary.txt # Quantified results summary
-├── paper/ # Technical manuscript (PDF)
-├── assets/ # Visualizations and GIFs
+│ ├── figures/ # High-resolution performance plots
+│ └── summary.txt # Quantified results
+│
+├── paper/ # Technical manuscript
+├── assets/ # Visualizations, GIFs
└── README.md
```
---
-## 🚀 Reproducibility
+## Reproducibility Guarantees
-Validated across high-compute and local environments:
-* **Cloud:** Google Colab (NVIDIA T4)
-* **Local:** Apple Silicon (M4 Pro/Max)
+This pipeline was built to be trusted.
+
+```
+✓ Fully causal — no lookahead bias at any stage
+✓ Rolling normalization only — no global statistics that leak future data
+✓ HMM re-fit periodically — no leakage across the evaluation window
+✓ Deterministic seeds — results are exact across runs
+✓ Validated on Google Colab (NVIDIA T4) and Apple Silicon (M4 Pro/Max)
+```
+
+---
+
+## Quick Start
-### Quick Start
```bash
-# Clone the repository
-git clone https://github.com/your-repo/lob-early-detection.git
+# Clone
+git clone https://github.com/prakulhiremath/LOB-Latent-Regimes.git
+cd LOB-Latent-Regimes
-# Install dependencies
+# Install
pip install -r requirements.txt
-# Execute the final pipeline
+# Run the final pipeline
python experiments/v7_final.py
```
---
-## 📝 Contributions
-* **Causal Formulation:** Formalizing the Latent Build-up $\rightarrow$ Stress transition.
-* **Temporal Drift:** Identifying subtle drift as a precursor to liquidity voids.
-* **MAX Fusion & Rising-Edge:** Novel trigger logic for sub-millisecond microstructure data.
-* **Empirical Proof:** Demonstrating strictly positive lead-time over reactive benchmarks.
+## Scope & Limitations
+
+Be precise about what this is.
+
+| This repo **is** | This repo **is not** |
+|---|---|
+| A detection framework for latent regime transitions | A trading strategy |
+| An empirical study of LOB microstructure | Optimised for execution latency |
+| A reproducible research pipeline | A production system |
+| A contribution to predictive market microstructure | Financial advice |
---
-## 📑 Citation
+## Contributions
+
+- **Causal formulation** of the latent build-up → stress transition as a three-state latent process
+- **Temporal drift identification** — subtle depth and spread drift as a leading precursor to liquidity voids
+- **MAX-fusion + rising-edge trigger** — novel detection logic for sub-millisecond microstructure data
+- **Empirical demonstration** of strictly positive lead-time over reactive benchmarks across all evaluated regimes
+
+---
+
+## Citation
```bibtex
-@article{lob_micro_regime_detection_2026,
- title={Early Detection of Latent Micro-Regimes in Limit Order Books},
- author={Hiremath, Prakul. & Hiremath, Vruksha},
- year={2026},
+@article{hiremath2026lob,
+ title = {Early Detection of Latent Micro-Regimes in Limit Order Books},
+ author = {Hiremath, Prakul Sunil and Hiremath, Vruksha Arun},
+ year = {2026},
+ doi = {10.5281/zenodo.19697687}
}
```
---
-
- Built with ☕️ and 🐍 for Reproducible Quantitative Finance.
-
+
+Built for **reproducible research** in quantitative finance and machine learning.
+*If the signal fires before the storm — it worked.*
-⸻
-
+