Eur. Phys. J. B 76, 513-527 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00064-y

Higher-order phase transitions on financial markets

¹ Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Smyczkowa Str. 5/7, 02678 Warsaw, Poland
² Departament de Física Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal, 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain

Corresponding author: ^a Andrzej.Kasprzak@fuw.edu.pl

Received: 5 July 2009
Revised: 2 January 2010
Published online: 23 February 2010

Abstract

Statistical and thermodynamic properties of the anomalous multifractal structure of random interevent (or intertransaction) times were thoroughly studied by using the extended continuous-time random walk (CTRW) formalism of Montroll, Weiss, Scher, and Lax. Although this formalism is quite general (and can be applied to any interhuman communication with nontrivial priority), we consider it in the context of a financial market where heterogeneous agent activities can occur within a wide spectrum of time scales. As the main general consequence, we found (by additionally using the Saddle-Point Approximation) the scaling or power-dependent form of the partition function, Z(q'). It diverges for any negative scaling powers q' (which justifies the name anomalous) while for positive ones it shows the scaling with the general exponent τ(q'). This exponent is the nonanalytic (singular) or noninteger power of q', which is one of the pilar of higher-order phase transitions. In definition of the partition function we used the pausing-time distribution (PTD) as the central one, which takes the form of convolution (or superstatistics used, e.g. for describing turbulence as well as the financial market). Its integral kernel is given by the stretched exponential distribution (often used in disordered systems). This kernel extends both the exponential distribution assumed in the original version of the CTRW formalism (for description of the transient photocurrent measured in amorphous glassy material) as well as the Gaussian one sometimes used in this context (e.g. for diffusion of hydrogen in amorphous metals or for aging effects in glasses). Our most important finding is the third- and higher-order phase transitions, which can be roughly interpreted as transitions between the phase where high frequency trading is most visible and the phase defined by low frequency trading. The specific order of the phase transition directly depends upon the shape exponent defining the stretched exponential integral kernel. On this basis a simple practical hint for investors was formulated.