Could Investors’ Expectations Explain Temporal Variations in Hurst’s Exponent, Loci of Multifractal Spectra, and Statistical Prediction Errors? The Case of the S&P 500 Index

Dominique, C-Rene and Rivera-Solis, Luis Eduardo (2012): Could Investors’ Expectations Explain Temporal Variations in Hurst’s Exponent, Loci of Multifractal Spectra, and Statistical Prediction Errors? The Case of the S&P 500 Index. Published in: International Business Research , Vol. Volume, No. No. 5 (1 May 2012): pp. 8-15.

Abstract

Over the periods 1998-2002 and 2009-2011, the S&P-500 Index went from persistence to anti-persistence mode, as measured by the Hurst index H. To uncover the reasons that characterize such a change, this paper uses a simple method that consists in treating quasi self-similar segments of the Index as initiators, and then finding appropriate generators with two intervals each to asymptotically model the strange attractor. The multifractal formalism shows that the change in persistence implies a corresponding change in the multifractal spectrum, and an enlargement of the invariant equilibrium set, making a market crash more likely, most probably due to a collapse of investors’ expectations. This also means that all statistical predictions made in one mode would have been off by an amount proportional to change in any element of the generalized set of dimensions in the other.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Persistence, Strange Equilibrium sets, Scaling Exponents, Multifractal Spectra, Generalized Dimensions of order q, Statistical-prediction-error
• Subjects: G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G14 - Information and Market Efficiency ; Event Studies ; Insider Trading; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D84 - Expectations ; Speculations; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C0 - General; G - Financial Economics > G0 - General > G00 - General; A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A10 - General; G - Financial Economics > G0 - General > G01 - Financial Crises

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