Financial time-series analysis: A brief overview

Abstract

Prices of commodities or assets produce what is called time-series. Different kinds of financial time-series have been recorded and studied for decades. Nowadays, all transactions on a financial market are recorded, leading to a huge amount of data available, either for free in the Internet or commercially. Financial time-series analysis is of great interest to practitioners as well as to theoreticians, for making inferences and predictions. Furthermore, the stochastic uncertainties inherent in financial time-series and the theory needed to deal with them make the subject especially interesting not only to economists, but also to statisticians and physicists. While it would be a formidable task to make an exhaustive review on the topic, with this review we try to give a flavor of some of its aspects.

16 pages, 7 figures, submitted for publication in the Proceedings Volume of the International Workshop "Econophys-Kolkata III", Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, March 12-15, 2007