English

The sharp peak-flat trough pattern and critical speculation

Statistical Mechanics 2009-10-31 v1 Statistical Finance

Abstract

We find empirically a characteristic sharp peak-flat trough pattern in a large set of commodity prices. We argue that the sharp peak structure reflects an endogenous inter-market organization, and that peaks may be seen as local ``singularities'' resulting from imitation and herding. These findings impose a novel stringent constraint on the construction of models. Intermittent amplification is not sufficient and nonlinear effects seem necessary to account for the observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9802234,
  title  = {The sharp peak-flat trough pattern and critical speculation},
  author = {B. M. Roehner and D. Sornette},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9802234},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

20 pages, 6 figures (only fig.4 and 6 available in ps format), 3 tables, European Physical Journal B (in press)