Quantile Forecasts
Asymmetric costs have an asymmetric answer. If being short costs three times as much as being long, the target is not the mean.
Asymmetric costs have an asymmetric answer. If being short costs three times as much as being long, the target is not the mean.
A point forecast is one summary of this. Once you keep the whole distribution, the decision can pick the summary it actually needs.
Swap squared error for an asymmetric loss and the fitted line becomes a quantile. Three fits give you an interval with no normality assumption.
A quantile level selects a position in the outcome distribution. Exact exceedance probabilities require continuity; discrete outcomes can have ties.
CRPS reads like a weighted absolute error computed from the entire distribution, so it rewards being both accurate and appropriately confident.
At p = 0.5 it is just absolute error. Away from the median it weights misses unevenly, which is what makes a quantile the thing being estimated.