IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2504.18958.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Modeling Regime Structure and Informational Drivers of Stock Market Volatility via the Financial Chaos Index

Author

Listed:
  • Masoud Ataei

Abstract

This paper investigates the structural dynamics of stock market volatility through the Financial Chaos Index, a tensor- and eigenvalue-based measure designed to capture realized volatility via mutual fluctuations among asset prices. Motivated by empirical evidence of regime-dependent volatility behavior and perceptual time dilation during financial crises, we develop a regime-switching framework based on the Modified Lognormal Power-Law distribution. Analysis of the FCIX from January 1990 to December 2023 identifies three distinct market regimes, low-chaos, intermediate-chaos, and high-chaos, each characterized by differing levels of systemic stress, statistical dispersion and persistence characteristics. Building upon the segmented regime structure, we further examine the informational forces that shape forward-looking market expectations. Using sentiment-based predictors derived from the Equity Market Volatility tracker, we employ an elastic net regression model to forecast implied volatility, as proxied by the VIX index. Our findings indicate that shifts in macroeconomic, financial, policy, and geopolitical uncertainty exhibit strong predictive power for volatility dynamics across regimes. Together, these results offer a unified empirical perspective on how systemic uncertainty governs both the realized evolution of financial markets and the anticipatory behavior embedded in implied volatility measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Masoud Ataei, 2025. "Modeling Regime Structure and Informational Drivers of Stock Market Volatility via the Financial Chaos Index," Papers 2504.18958, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2504.18958
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.18958
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tobias Rydén & Timo Teräsvirta & Stefan Åsbrink, 1998. "Stylized facts of daily return series and the hidden Markov model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 217-244.
    2. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    3. Daniele Bianchi & Matthias Büchner & Andrea Tamoni, 2021. "Bond Risk Premiums with Machine Learning [Quadratic term structure models: Theory and evidence]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(2), pages 1046-1089.
    4. Audrino, Francesco & Sigrist, Fabio & Ballinari, Daniele, 2020. "The impact of sentiment and attention measures on stock market volatility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 334-357.
    5. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Kyle J. Kost, 2019. "Policy News and Stock Market Volatility," NBER Working Papers 25720, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Milan Kumar Das & Anindya Goswami, 2019. "Testing of binary regime switching models using squeeze duration analysis," International Journal of Financial Engineering (IJFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 1-20, March.
    2. Yizhan Shu & Chenyu Yu & John M. Mulvey, 2024. "Downside risk reduction using regime-switching signals: a statistical jump model approach," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(5), pages 493-507, September.
    3. Cowan, Adrian M. & Joutz, Frederick L., 2006. "An unobserved component model of asset pricing across financial markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 86-107.
    4. Siu, Tak Kuen & Yang, Hailiang & Lau, John W., 2008. "Pricing currency options under two-factor Markov-modulated stochastic volatility models," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 295-302, December.
    5. Krishnamurthy, Vikram & Leoff, Elisabeth & Sass, Jörn, 2018. "Filterbased stochastic volatility in continuous-time hidden Markov models," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 1-21.
    6. Yizhan Shu & Chenyu Yu & John M. Mulvey, 2024. "Downside Risk Reduction Using Regime-Switching Signals: A Statistical Jump Model Approach," Papers 2402.05272, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
    7. Peixin (Payton) Liu & Kuan Xu & Yonggan Zhao, 2011. "Market regimes, sectorial investments, and time‐varying risk premiums," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(2), pages 107-133, April.
    8. Fabrice Collard & Sujoy Mukerji & Kevin Sheppard & Jean‐Marc Tallon, 2018. "Ambiguity and the historical equity premium," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 945-993, July.
    9. Bulla, Jan & Mergner, Sascha & Bulla, Ingo & Sesboüé, André & Chesneau, Christophe, 2010. "Markov-switching Asset Allocation: Do Profitable Strategies Exist?," MPRA Paper 21154, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Erlandsson, Ulf G., 2005. "Exchange Rates and Markov Switching Dynamics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 314-320, July.
    11. Jan Bulla, 2010. "Hidden Markov models with t components. Increased persistence and other aspects," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 459-475.
    12. Gianna Boero & Emanuela Marrocu, 2005. "Evaluating non-linear models on point and interval forecasts: an application with exchange rates," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 58(232), pages 91-120.
    13. Liu, Yuanyuan & Niu, Zibo & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir & Yin, Libo & Zhang, Hongwei, 2022. "Forecasting the volatility of crude oil futures: The role of oil investor attention and its regime switching characteristics under a high-frequency framework," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(PA).
    14. Henry Aray, 2006. "The Latin American and Spanish Stock markets," ThE Papers 06/12, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    15. Luo, Qin & Bu, Jinfeng & Xu, Weiju & Huang, Dengshi, 2023. "Stock market volatility prediction: Evidence from a new bagging model," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 445-456.
    16. Arnaud Dufays & Elysee Aristide Houndetoungan & Alain Coën, 2022. "Selective Linear Segmentation for Detecting Relevant Parameter Changes [Risks and Portfolio Decisions Involving Hedge Funds]," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 762-805.
    17. Sascha Mergner & Jan Bulla, 2008. "Time-varying beta risk of Pan-European industry portfolios: A comparison of alternative modeling techniques," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(8), pages 771-802.
    18. Naimoli, Antonio, 2022. "The information content of sentiment indices for forecasting Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall in equity markets," MPRA Paper 112588, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Marco Bonomo & René Garcia & Nour Meddahi & Roméo Tédongap, 2011. "Generalized Disappointment Aversion, Long-run Volatility Risk, and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(1), pages 82-122.
    20. Dichtl, Hubert & Drobetz, Wolfgang & Neuhierl, Andreas & Wendt, Viktoria-Sophie, 2021. "Data snooping in equity premium prediction," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 72-94.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2504.18958. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.