Co-movements of stock price fluctuations are described by the cross-correlation matrix C. The application of random matrix theory (RMT) allows to distinguish between spurious correlations in C due to measurement noise and true correlations containing economically meaningful information. By...

We study the statistical properties of volatility---a measure of how much the market is likely to fluctuate. We estimate the volatility by the local average of the absolute price changes. We analyze (a) the S&P 500 stock index for the 13-year period Jan 1984 to Dec 1996 and (b) the market...

We present a theory of excess stock market volatility, in which market movements are due to trades by very large institutional investors in relatively illiquid markets. Such trades generate significant spikes in returns and volume, even in the absence of important news about fundamentals. We...