The Better Turbulence Index? Forecasting Adverse Financial Markets Regimes with Persistent Homology

41 Pages Posted: 18 Dec 2019 Last revised: 20 Dec 2019

See all articles by Eduard Baitinger

Eduard Baitinger

FERI Trust GmbH

Samuel Flegel

Justus-Liebig-University Giessen

Date Written: November 20, 2019

Abstract

Persistent homology is the workhorse of modern topological data analysis, which in recent years becomes increasingly powerful due to methodological and computing power advances. In this paper, after equipping the reader with the relevant background on persistent homology, we show how this tool can be harnessed for investment purposes. Specifically, we propose a persistent homology based turbulence index for the detection of adverse market regimes. With the help of an out-of-sample study, we demonstrate that investment strategies relying on a persistent homology based turbulence detection outperform investment strategies based on other popular turbulence indices. Additionally, we conduct a stability analysis of our findings. This analysis confirms the results from the previous out-of-sample study, as the outperformance prevails for most configurations of the respective investment strategy and hence mitigating possible data mining concerns.

Keywords: persistent homology, turbulence, regime shifts, investment strategy, topological data analysis

JEL Classification: G10, G11, C53

Suggested Citation

Baitinger, Eduard and Flegel, Samuel, The Better Turbulence Index? Forecasting Adverse Financial Markets Regimes with Persistent Homology (November 20, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3490567 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3490567

Eduard Baitinger (Contact Author)

FERI Trust GmbH ( email )

Rathausplatz 8-10
Bad Homburg v.d.H, 61348
Germany

Samuel Flegel

Justus-Liebig-University Giessen ( email )

Giessen
Germany

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