Non-stationary multifractality in stock returns

We perform an extensive empirical analysis of scaling properties of equity returns, suggesting that financial data show time varying multifractal properties. This is obtained by comparing empirical observations of the weighted generalised Hurst exponent (wGHE) with time series simulated via Multifractal Random Walk (MRW) by Bacry et al. [E. Bacry, J. Delour, J.-F. Muzy, Multifractal random walk, Physical Review E 64 (2) (2001) 026103]. While dynamical wGHE computed on synthetic MRW series is consistent with a scenario where multifractality is constant over time, fluctuations in the dynamical wGHE observed in empirical data are not in agreement with a MRW with constant intermittency parameter. We test these hypotheses of constant multifractality considering different specifications of MRW model with fatter tails: in all cases considered, although the thickness of the tails accounts for most of the anomalous fluctuations of multifractality, it still cannot fully explain the observed fluctuations.     

Price–volume cross-correlation analysis of CSI300 index futures

We investigate the cross-correlation between price returns and trading volumes for the China Securities Index 300 (CSI300) index futures, which are the only stock index futures traded on the China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX). The basic statistics suggest that distributions of these two time series are not normal but exhibit fat tails. Based on the detrended cross-correlation analysis (DCCA), we obtain that returns and trading volumes are long-range cross-correlated. The existence of multifractality in the cross-correlation between returns and trading volumes has been proven with the multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MFDCCA) algorithm. The multifractal analysis also confirms that returns and trading volumes have different degrees of multifractality. We further perform a cross-correlation statistic to verify whether the cross-correlation significantly exists between returns and trading volumes for CSI300 index futures. In addition, results of the test for lead-lag effect demonstrate that contemporaneous cross-correlation of return and trading volume series is stronger than cross-correlations of leaded or lagged series.     

Multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis of derivative and spot markets

We investigate the multifractal properties of price increments in the cases of derivative and spot markets. Through the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis, we estimate the generalized Hurst and the Renyi exponents for price fluctuations. By deriving the singularity spectrum from the above exponents, we quantify the multifractality of a financial time series and compare the multifractal properties of two different markets. The different behavior of each agent-group in transactions is also discussed. In order to identify the nature of the underlying multifractality, we apply the method of surrogate data to both sets of financial data. It is shown that multifractality due to a fat-tailed distribution is significant.     

Size selected growth of nanodots: analytical prediction for the selected size

We analyze the multifractal spectra of daily foreign exchange rates for Japan, Hong-Kong, Korea, and Thailand with respect to the United States in the period from 1991 until 2005. We find that the return time series show multifractal spectrum features for all four cases. To observe the effect of the Asian currency crisis, we also estimate the multifractal spectra of limited series before and after the crisis. We find that the Korean and Thai foreign exchange markets experienced a significant increase in multifractality compared to Hong-Kong and Japan. We also show that the multifractality is stronger related to the presence of high values of returns in the series.     

Multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis of the Chinese stock index futures market

Based on the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) and multifractal spectrum analysis, this paper empirically studies the multifractal properties of the Chinese stock index futures market. Using a total of 2942 ten-minute closing prices, we find that the Chinese stock index futures returns exhibit long-range correlations and multifractality, making the single-scale index insufficient to describe the futures price fluctuations. Further, by comparing the original time series with the transformed time series through shuffling procedure and phase randomization procedure, we show the existence of two different sources of the multifractality for the Chinese stock index futures market. Our results suggest that the multifractality is mainly due to long-range correlations, although the fat-tailed probability distributions also contribute to such multifractal behaviour.     

Multifractal properties of the Indian financial market

We investigate the multifractal properties of the logarithmic returns of the Indian financial indices (BSE & NSE) by applying the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis. The results are compared with that of the US S&P 500 index. Numerically we find that qth-order generalized Hurst exponents h(q) and τ(q) change with the moments q. The nonlinear dependence of these scaling exponents and the singularity spectrum f(α) show that the returns possess multifractality. By comparing the MF-DFA results of the original series to those for the shuffled series, we find that the multifractality is due to the contributions of long-range correlations as well as the broad probability density function. The financial markets studied here are compared with the Binomial Multifractal Model (BMFM) and have a smaller multifractal strength than the BMFM.     

Dynamical generalized Hurst exponent as a tool to monitor unstable periods in financial time series

We investigate the use of the Hurst exponent, dynamically computed over a weighted moving time-window, to evaluate the level of stability/instability of financial firms. Financial firms bailed-out as a consequence of the 2007–2008 credit crisis show a neat increase with time of the generalized Hurst exponent in the period preceding the unfolding of the crisis. Conversely, firms belonging to other market sectors, which suffered the least throughout the crisis, show opposite behaviors. We find that the multifractality of the bailed-out firms increase at the crisis suggesting that the multi fractal properties of the time series are changing. These findings suggest the possibility of using the scaling behavior as a tool to track the level of stability of a firm. In this paper, we introduce a method to compute the generalized Hurst exponent which assigns larger weights to more recent events with respect to older ones. In this way large fluctuations in the remote past are less likely to influence the recent past. We also investigate the scaling associated with the tails of the log-returns distributions and compare this scaling with the scaling associated with the Hurst exponent, observing that the processes underlying the price dynamics of these firms are truly multi-scaling.     

Fat tails and multi-scaling in a simple model of limit order markets

We use a simple model where traders submit limit orders which are cleared in a double auction market. The limit prices are set by traders randomly, for buyers around a long-term trend and for sellers in a narrow band around their purchase price. Orders which are not filled within a specific time frame are randomly assigned a new limit price. In this framework we find evidence for the endogenous emergence of fat tails in the distribution of returns and multi-scaling whose origin is attributed to the market structure.     

Fluctuation behaviors of financial time series by a stochastic Ising system on a Sierpinski carpet lattice

We develop a financial market model using an Ising spin system on a Sierpinski carpet lattice that breaks the equal status of each spin. To study the fluctuation behavior of the financial model, we present numerical research based on Monte Carlo simulation in conjunction with the statistical analysis and multifractal analysis of the financial time series. We extract the multifractal spectra by selecting various lattice size values of the Sierpinski carpet, and the inverse temperature of the Ising dynamic system. We also investigate the statistical fluctuation behavior, the time-varying volatility clustering, and the multifractality of returns for the indices SSE, SZSE, DJIA, IXIC, S&P500, HSI, N225, and for the simulation data derived from the Ising model on the Sierpinski carpet lattice. A numerical study of the model’s dynamical properties reveals that this financial model reproduces important features of the empirical data.     

Multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis of sheep livestock prices in origin

The multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) is used to verify whether or not the returns of time series of prices paid to farmers in original markets can be described by the multifractal approach. By way of example, 5 weekly time series of prices of different breeds, slaughter weight and market differentiation from 2000 to 2012 are analyzed. Results obtained from the multifractal parameters and multifractal spectra show that the price series of livestock products are of a multifractal nature. The Hurst exponent shows that these time series are stationary signals, some of which exhibit long memory (Merino milk-fed in Seville and Segureña paschal in Jaen), short memory (Merino paschal in Cordoba and Segureña milk-fed in Jaen) or even are close to an uncorrelated signals (Merino paschal in Seville). MF-DFA is able to discern the different underlying dynamics that play an important role in different types of sheep livestock markets, such as degree and source of multifractality. In addition, the main source of multifractality of these time series is due to the broadness of the probability function, instead of the long-range correlation properties between small and large fluctuations, which play a clearly secondary role.     

A Markov model of financial returns

We address the general problem of how to quantify the kinematics of time series with stationary first moments but having non stationary multifractal long-range correlated second moments. We show that a Markov process is sufficient to model important aspects of the multifractality observed in financial time series and propose a kinematic model of price fluctuations. We test the proposed model by analyzing index closing prices of the New York Stock Exchange and the DEM/USD tick-by-tick exchange rates obtained from Reuters EFX. We show that the model captures the characteristic features observed in actual financial time series, including volatility clustering, time scaling and fat tails in the probability density functions, power-law behavior of volatility correlations and, most importantly, the observed nonuniversal multifractal singularity spectrum. Motivated by our finding of strong agreement between the model and the data, we argue that at least two independent stochastic Gaussian variables are required to adequately model price fluctuations.     

A New Look at Calendar Anomalies: Multifractality and Day-of-the-Week Effect

Stock markets can become inefficient due to calendar anomalies known as the day-of-the-week effect. Calendar anomalies are well known in the financial literature, but the phenomena remain to be explored in econophysics. This paper uses multifractal analysis to evaluate if the temporal dynamics of market returns also exhibit calendar anomalies such as day-of-the-week effects. We apply multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) to the daily returns of market indices worldwide for each day of the week. Our results indicate that distinct multifractal properties characterize individual days of the week. Monday returns tend to exhibit more persistent behavior and richer multifractal structures than other day-resolved returns. Shuffling the series reveals that multifractality arises from a broad probability density function and long-term correlations. The time-dependent multifractal analysis shows that the Monday returns’ multifractal spectra are much wider than those of other days. This behavior is especially persistent during financial crises. The presence of day-of-the-week effects in multifractal dynamics of market returns motivates further research on calendar anomalies for distinct market regimes.     

Dynamics of episodic transient correlations in currency exchange rate returns and their predictability

We study the dynamics of the linear and non-linear serial dependencies in financial time series in a rolling window framework. In particular, we focus on the detection of episodes of statistically significant two- and three-point correlations in the returns of several leading currency exchange rates that could offer some potential for their predictability. We employ a rolling window approach in order to capture the correlation dynamics for different window lengths and analyze the distributions of periods with statistically significant correlations. We find that for sufficiently large window lengths these distributions fit well to power-law behavior. We also measure the predictability itself by a hit rate, i.e. the rate of consistency between the signs of the actual returns and their predictions, obtained from a simple correlation-based predictor. It is found that during these relatively brief periods the returns are predictable to a certain degree and the predictability depends on the selection of the window length.     

A multifractal approach for stock market inefficiency

In this paper, the multifractality degree in a collection of developed and emerging stock market indices is evaluated. Empirical results suggest that the multifractality degree can be used as a quantifier to characterize the stage of market development of world stock indices. We develop a model to test the relationship between the stage of market development and the multifractality degree and find robust evidence that the relationship is negative, i.e., higher multifractality is associated with a less developed market. Thus, an inefficiency ranking can be derived from multifractal analysis. Finally, a link with previous volatility time series results is established.     

Multifractal analysis of stock exchange crashes

We analyze the complexity of rare events of the DJIA Index. We reveal that the returns of the time series exhibit strong multifractal properties meaning that temporal correlations play a substantial role. The effect of major stock market crashes can be best illustrated by the comparison of the multifractal spectra of the time series before and after the crash. Aftershock periods compared to foreshock periods exhibit richer and more complex dynamics. Compared to an average crash, calculated by taking into account the larger 5 crashes of the DJIA Index, the 1929 event exhibits significantly more increase in multifractality than the 1987 crisis.     

Multifractal detrending moving average analysis on the US Dollar exchange rates

In this paper, we investigate the multifractal behavior of the US dollar (USD) exchange rates. The results from the multifractal detrending moving average algorithm show that twelve exchange rate series were multifractal. The major source of multifractality are long-range correlations of small and large fluctuations. Fat-tail distributions have important effects on the multifractality of USD/AUR, USD/EUR and CNY/USD exchange rates. We also find evidence that extreme events play an important role in the contributions to multifractality for the USD/EUR exchange rate.     

Research on the relationship between the multifractality and long memory of realized volatility in the SSECI

We examine the multifractal properties of the realized volatility (RV) and realized bipower variation (RBV) series in the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SSECI) by using the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) method. We find that there exist distinct multifractal characteristics in the volatility series. The contributions of two different types of source of multifractality, namely, fat-tailed probability distributions and nonlinear temporal correlations, are studied. By using the unit root test, we also find the strength of the multifractality of the volatility time series is insensitive to the sampling frequency but that the long memory of these series is sensitive.     

Multifractality in stock indexes: Fact or Fiction?

Multifractal analysis and extensive statistical tests are performed upon intraday minutely data within individual trading days for four stock market indexes (including HSI, SZSC, S&P 500, and NASDAQ) to check whether the indexes (instead of the returns) possess multifractality. We find that the mass exponent τ(q) is linear and the singularity α(q) is close to 1 for all trading days and all indexes. Furthermore, we find strong evidence showing that the scaling behaviors of the original data sets cannot be distinguished from those of shuffled time series. Hence, the so-called multifractality in the intraday stock market indexes is merely an illusion.     

Grafting of higher-order correlations of real financial markets into herding models

In this work, we graft the volatility clustering observed in empirical financial time series into the Equiluz and Zimmermann (EZ) model, which was introduced to reproduce the herding behaviors of a financial time series. The original EZ model failed to reproduce the empirically observed power-law exponents of real financial data. The EZ model ordinarily produces a more fat-tailed distribution compared to real data, and a long-range correlation of absolute returns that underlie the volatility clustering. As it is not appropriate to capture the empirically observed correlations in a modified EZ model, we apply a sorting method to incorporate the nonlinear correlation structure of a real financial time series into the generated returns. By doing so, we observe that the slow convergence of distribution of returns is well established for returns generated from the EZ model and its modified version. It is also found that the modified EZ model leads to a less fat-tailed distribution.     

Are crude oil markets multifractal? Evidence from MF-DFA and MF-SSA perspectives

In this article, we investigated the multifractality and its underlying formation mechanisms in international crude oil markets, namely, Brent and WTI, which are the most important oil pricing benchmarks globally. We attempt to find the answers to the following questions: (1) Are those different markets multifractal? (2) What are the dynamical causes for multifractality in those markets (if any)? To answer these questions, we applied both multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) and multifractal singular spectrum analysis (MF-SSA) based on the partition function, two widely used multifractality detecting methods. We found that both markets exhibit multifractal properties by means of these methods. Furthermore, in order to identify the underlying formation mechanisms of multifractal features, we destroyed the underlying nonlinear temporal correlation by shuffling the original time series; thus, we identified that the causes of the multifractality are influenced mainly by a nonlinear temporal correlation mechanism instead of a non-Gaussian distribution. At last, by tracking the evolution of left- and right-half multifractal spectra, we found that the dynamics of the large price fluctuations is significantly different from that of the small ones. Our main contribution is that we not only provided empirical evidence of the existence of multifractality in the markets, but also the sources of multifractality and plausible explanations to current literature; furthermore, we investigated the different dynamical price behaviors influenced by large and small price fluctuations.