IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v379y2007i1p1-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hurst exponents, Markov processes, and fractional Brownian motion

Author

Listed:
  • McCauley, Joseph L.
  • Gunaratne, Gemunu H.
  • Bassler, Kevin E.

Abstract

There is much confusion in the literature over Hurst exponents. Recently, we took a step in the direction of eliminating some of the confusion. One purpose of this paper is to illustrate the difference between fractional Brownian motion (fBm) on the one hand and Gaussian Markov processes where H≠12 on the other. The difference lies in the increments, which are stationary and correlated in one case and nonstationary and uncorrelated in the other. The two- and one-point densities of fBm are constructed explicitly. The two-point density does not scale. The one-point density for a semi-infinite time interval is identical to that for a scaling Gaussian Markov process with H≠12 over a finite time interval. We conclude that both Hurst exponents and one-point densities are inadequate for deducing the underlying dynamics from empirical data. We apply these conclusions in the end to make a focused statement about ‘nonlinear diffusion’.

Suggested Citation

  • McCauley, Joseph L. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H. & Bassler, Kevin E., 2007. "Hurst exponents, Markov processes, and fractional Brownian motion," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 379(1), pages 1-9.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:379:y:2007:i:1:p:1-9
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2006.12.028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437106013483
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2006.12.028?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bassler, Kevin E. & McCauley, Joseph L. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2006. "Nonstationary increments, scaling distributions, and variable diffusion processes in financial markets," MPRA Paper 2126, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kevin E. Bassler & Joseph L. McCauley & Gemunu H. Gunaratne, 2006. "Nonstationary Increments, Scaling Distributions, and Variable Diffusion Processes in Financial Markets," Papers physics/0609198, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giacomo Bormetti & Sofia Cazzaniga, 2011. "Multiplicative noise, fast convolution, and pricing," Papers 1107.1451, arXiv.org.
    2. Sensoy, Ahmet & Tabak, Benjamin M., 2016. "Dynamic efficiency of stock markets and exchange rates," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 353-371.
    3. McCauley, Joseph L. & Bassler, Kevin E. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2008. "Martingales, detrending data, and the efficient market hypothesis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(1), pages 202-216.
    4. Vygintas Gontis & Aleksejus Kononovicius, 2017. "Spurious memory in non-equilibrium stochastic models of imitative behavior," Papers 1707.09801, arXiv.org.
    5. McCauley, Joseph L., 2007. "A comment on the paper “Stochastic feedback, nonlinear families of Markov processes, and nonlinear Fokker–Planck equations” by T.D. Frank," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 382(2), pages 445-452.
    6. Aleksejus Kononovicius & Vygintas Gontis, 2019. "Approximation of the first passage time distribution for the birth-death processes," Papers 1902.00924, arXiv.org.
    7. Sensoy, Ahmet & Tabak, Benjamin M., 2015. "Time-varying long term memory in the European Union stock markets," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 436(C), pages 147-158.
    8. Wiston Adrian Risso, 2009. "The informational efficiency: the emerging markets versus the developed markets," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(5), pages 485-487.
    9. Cufaro Petroni, Nicola, 2008. "Selfdecomposability and selfsimilarity: A concise primer," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(8), pages 1875-1894.
    10. Miśkiewicz, Janusz & Ausloos, Marcel, 2008. "Correlation measure to detect time series distances, whence economy globalization," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(26), pages 6584-6594.
    11. Fan, Feng-Hua & Deng, Yanbin & Huang, Yong-Chang, 2017. "Investigation on financial crises with the negative-information-propagation-induced model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 470(C), pages 94-104.
    12. V. Gontis & A. Kononovicius, 2017. "Burst and inter-burst duration statistics as empirical test of long-range memory in the financial markets," Papers 1701.01255, arXiv.org.
    13. Hua, Jia-Chen & Chen, Lijian & Falcon, Liberty & McCauley, Joseph L. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2015. "Variable diffusion in stock market fluctuations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 419(C), pages 221-233.
    14. Vygintas Gontis, 2021. "Order flow in the financial markets from the perspective of the Fractional L\'evy stable motion," Papers 2105.02057, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.
    15. Risso, Wiston Adrián, 2008. "The informational efficiency and the financial crashes," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 396-408, September.
    16. Aleksejus Kononovicius & Bronislovas Kaulakys, 2022. "$1/f$ noise from the sequence of nonoverlapping rectangular pulses," Papers 2210.11792, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    17. Jiahua Wang & Hongliang Zhu & Dongxin Li, 2018. "Price Dynamics in an Order-Driven Market with Bayesian Learning," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-15, November.
    18. Vygintas Gontis, 2023. "Discrete $q$-exponential limit order cancellation time distribution," Papers 2306.00093, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    19. Gontis, V. & Kononovicius, A., 2017. "Burst and inter-burst duration statistics as empirical test of long-range memory in the financial markets," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 483(C), pages 266-272.
    20. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034.
    21. Rytis Kazakevicius & Aleksejus Kononovicius & Bronislovas Kaulakys & Vygintas Gontis, 2021. "Understanding the nature of the long-range memory phenomenon in socioeconomic systems," Papers 2108.02506, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McCauley, J.L. & Gunaratne, G.H. & Bassler, K.E., 2007. "Martingale option pricing," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 380(C), pages 351-356.
    2. McCauley, Joseph L., 2008. "Time vs. ensemble averages for nonstationary time series," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(22), pages 5518-5522.
    3. Kerry W. Fendick, 2013. "Pricing and Hedging Derivative Securities with Unknown Local Volatilities," Papers 1309.6164, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2013.
    4. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034.
    5. F. Baldovin & F. Camana & M. Caporin & M. Caraglio & A.L. Stella, 2015. "Ensemble properties of high-frequency data and intraday trading rules," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 231-245, February.
    6. Hua, Jia-Chen & Roy, Sukesh & McCauley, Joseph L. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2016. "Using dynamic mode decomposition to extract cyclic behavior in the stock market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 448(C), pages 172-180.
    7. McCauley, Joseph L., 2008. "Nonstationarity of efficient finance markets: FX market evolution from stability to instability," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 820-837, December.
    8. Seemann, Lars & Hua, Jia-Chen & McCauley, Joseph L. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2012. "Ensemble vs. time averages in financial time series analysis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(23), pages 6024-6032.
    9. McCauley, Joseph L., 2009. "ARCH and GARCH models vs. martingale volatility of finance market returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 151-153, September.
    10. Bassler, Kevin E. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H. & McCauley, Joseph L., 2008. "Empirically based modeling in financial economics and beyond, and spurious stylized facts," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 767-783, December.
    11. McCauley, Joseph L. & Bassler, Kevin E. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2008. "Martingales, nonstationary increments, and the efficient market hypothesis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(15), pages 3916-3920.
    12. Axel A. Araneda & Nils Bertschinger, 2020. "The sub-fractional CEV model," Papers 2001.06412, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2021.
    13. McCauley, Joseph L. & Bassler, Kevin E. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2008. "Martingales, detrending data, and the efficient market hypothesis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(1), pages 202-216.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:379:y:2007:i:1:p:1-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.