IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0082771.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scaling and Volatility of Breakouts and Breakdowns in Stock Price Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Lu Liu
  • Jianrong Wei
  • Jiping Huang

Abstract

Background: Because the movement of stock prices is not only ubiquitous in financial markets but also crucial for investors, extensive studies have been done to understand the law behind it. In particular, since the financial crisis in 2008, researchers have a more interest in investigating large market volatilities in order to grasp changing market trends. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this work, we analyze the breakouts and breakdowns of both the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in the US stock market and the Shanghai Composite Index in the Chinese stock market. The breakout usually represents an ongoing upward trend in technical analysis while the breakdown represents an ongoing downward trend. Based on the renormalization method, we introduce two parameters to quantize breakouts and breakdowns, respectively. We discover scaling behavior, characterized by power-law distributions for both the breakouts and breakdowns in the two financial markets with different power-law exponents, which reflect different market volatilities. In detail, the market volatility for breakdowns is usually larger than that for breakouts. Moreover, as an emerging market, the Chinese stock market has larger market volatilities for both the breakouts and breakdowns than the US stock market (a mature market). Further, the short-term volatilities show similar features for both the US stock market and the Chinese stock market. However, the medium-term volatilities in the US stock market are almost symmetrical for the breakouts and breakdowns, whereas those in the Chinese stock market appear to be asymmetrical for the breakouts and breakdowns. Conclusions/Signicance: The methodology presented here provides a way to understand scaling and hence volatilities of breakouts and breakdowns in stock price dynamics. Our findings not only reveal the features of market volatilities but also make a comparison between mature and emerging financial markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Lu Liu & Jianrong Wei & Jiping Huang, 2013. "Scaling and Volatility of Breakouts and Breakdowns in Stock Price Dynamics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-6, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0082771
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082771
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082771
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082771&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0082771?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitchell, Mark L & Stafford, Erik, 2000. "Managerial Decisions and Long-Term Stock Price Performance," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(3), pages 287-329, July.
    2. Stein, Elias M & Stein, Jeremy C, 1991. "Stock Price Distributions with Stochastic Volatility: An Analytic Approach," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(4), pages 727-752.
    3. Cheol‐Ho Park & Scott H. Irwin, 2007. "What Do We Know About The Profitability Of Technical Analysis?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 786-826, September.
    4. Mantegna,Rosario N. & Stanley,H. Eugene, 2007. "Introduction to Econophysics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521039871.
    5. Jianrong Wei & Jiping Huang, 2012. "An Exotic Long-Term Pattern in Stock Price Dynamics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-5, December.
    6. Dilip Abreu & Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2003. "Bubbles and Crashes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 173-204, January.
    7. John Y. Campbell & Sanford J. Grossman & Jiang Wang, 1993. "Trading Volume and Serial Correlation in Stock Returns," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(4), pages 905-939.
    8. Miguel A. Fuentes & Austin Gerig & Javier Vicente, 2009. "Universal Behavior of Extreme Price Movements in Stock Markets," Papers 0912.5448, arXiv.org.
    9. Andrew W. Lo & Harry Mamaysky & Jiang Wang, 2000. "Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1705-1765, August.
    10. Taylor, Mark P. & Allen, Helen, 1992. "The use of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 304-314, June.
    11. Lo, Andrew W, 1991. "Long-Term Memory in Stock Market Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1279-1313, September.
    12. Thomas Lux & Michele Marchesi, 2000. "Volatility Clustering In Financial Markets: A Microsimulation Of Interacting Agents," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(04), pages 675-702.
    13. Zhou, W.C. & Xu, H.C. & Cai, Z.Y. & Wei, J.R. & Zhu, X.Y. & Wang, W. & Zhao, L. & Huang, J.P., 2009. "Peculiar statistical properties of Chinese stock indices in bull and bear market phases," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(6), pages 891-899.
    14. Anders Johansen & Didier Sornette, 2010. "Shocks, Crashes and Bubbles in Financial Markets," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 53(2), pages 201-253.
    15. Miguel A Fuentes & Austin Gerig & Javier Vicente, 2009. "Universal Behavior of Extreme Price Movements in Stock Markets," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(12), pages 1-4, December.
    16. Rama Cont, 2007. "Volatility Clustering in Financial Markets: Empirical Facts and Agent-Based Models," Springer Books, in: Gilles Teyssière & Alan P. Kirman (ed.), Long Memory in Economics, pages 289-309, Springer.
    17. Lux, Thomas, 1998. "The socio-economic dynamics of speculative markets: interacting agents, chaos, and the fat tails of return distributions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 143-165, January.
    18. Mantegna, Rosario N & Palágyi, Zoltán & Stanley, H.Eugene, 1999. "Applications of statistical mechanics to finance," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 216-221.
    19. Carol L. Osler, 2000. "Support for resistance: technical analysis and intraday exchange rates," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Jul, pages 53-68.
    20. R. Cont, 2001. "Empirical properties of asset returns: stylized facts and statistical issues," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 223-236.
    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. Yan Li & Bo Zheng & Ting-Ting Chen & Xiong-Fei Jiang, 2017. "Fluctuation-driven price dynamics and investment strategies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(12), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Zhang, H.S. & Shen, X.Y. & Huang, J.P., 2016. "Pattern of trends in stock markets as revealed by the renormalization method," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 456(C), pages 340-346.
    3. Ou Sun & Zhixin Liu, 2016. "Comparison of Monetary Policy Actions and Central Bank Communication on Tackling Asset Price Bubbles—Evidence from China’s Stock Market," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-20, November.

    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. Staccioli, Jacopo & Napoletano, Mauro, 2021. "An agent-based model of intra-day financial markets dynamics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 331-348.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5mqflt6amg8gab4rlqn6sbko4b is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Detlef Seese & Christof Weinhardt & Frank Schlottmann (ed.), 2008. "Handbook on Information Technology in Finance," International Handbooks on Information Systems, Springer, number 978-3-540-49487-4, November.
    4. John Fry, 2014. "Bubbles, shocks and elementary technical trading strategies," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 87(1), pages 1-13, January.
    5. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    6. Frank H. Westerhoff, 2009. "Exchange Rate Dynamics: A Nonlinear Survey," Chapters, in: J. Barkley Rosser Jr. (ed.), Handbook of Research on Complexity, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Jianrong Wei & Jiping Huang, 2012. "An Exotic Long-Term Pattern in Stock Price Dynamics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-5, December.
    8. Marcel Ausloos, 2013. "Econophysics: Comments on a Few Applications, Successes, Methods and Models," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 2(2), pages 101-115, July.
    9. Westerhoff, Frank H. & Dieci, Roberto, 2006. "The effectiveness of Keynes-Tobin transaction taxes when heterogeneous agents can trade in different markets: A behavioral finance approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 293-322, February.
    10. Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2004. "Bubbles and Crashes in a Behavioural Finance Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 1194, CESifo.
    11. David Vidal-Tomás & Simone Alfarano, 2020. "An agent-based early warning indicator for financial market instability," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 15(1), pages 49-87, January.
    12. Changtai Li & Weihong Huang & Wei-Siang Wang & Wai-Mun Chia, 2023. "Price Change and Trading Volume: Behavioral Heterogeneity in Stock Market," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 61(2), pages 677-713, February.
    13. Raquel Almeida Ramos & Federico Bassi & Dany Lang, 2020. "Bet against the trend and cash in profits," CEPN Working Papers halshs-02956879, HAL.
    14. Bekiros, Stelios D., 2015. "Heuristic learning in intraday trading under uncertainty," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 34-49.
    15. Fathi Abid & Bilel Kaffel, 2018. "The extent of virgin olive-oil prices’ distribution revealing the behavior of market speculators," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 561-590, February.
    16. Biondo, Alessio Emanuele, 2018. "Learning to forecast, risk aversion, and microstructural aspects of financial stability," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-21.
    17. Trinidad Segovia, J.E. & Fernández-Martínez, M. & Sánchez-Granero, M.A., 2019. "A novel approach to detect volatility clusters in financial time series," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 535(C).
    18. Westerhoff, Frank, 2009. "A simple agent-based financial market model: Direct interactions and comparisons of trading profits," BERG Working Paper Series 61, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    19. Giovanni Campisi & Silvia Muzzioli, 2020. "Investor sentiment and trading behavior," Department of Economics 0163, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    20. Biondo, Alessio Emanuele, 2017. "Learning to forecast, risk aversion, and microstructural aspects of financial stability," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-104, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    21. Paul de Grauwe & Roberto Dieci & Marianna Grimaldi & Paul De Grauwe, 2005. "Fundamental and Non-Fundamental Equilibria in the Foreign Exchange Market. A Behavioural Finance Framework," CESifo Working Paper Series 1431, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0082771. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.