Predictable markets? A news‐driven model of the stock market Maxim Gusev1, Dimitri Kroujiline*2, Boris Govorkov1, Sergey V. Sharov3, Dmitry Ushanov4 and Maxim Zhilyaev5 1 IBC Quantitative Strategies, Tärnaby, Sweden, www.ibctrends.com. 2 LGT Capital Partners, Pfäffikon, Switzerland, www.lgt‐capital‐partners.com. Email:
[email protected]. (*corresponding author) 3 N.I. Lobachevsky State University, Advanced School of General & Applied Physics, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, www.unn.ru. 4 Moscow State University, Department of Mechanics and Mathematics, Moscow, Russia, www.math.msu.su. 5 Mozilla Corporation, Mountain View, CA, USA, www.mozilla.org. Abstract: We attempt to explain stock market dynamics in terms of the interaction among three variables: market price, investor opinion and information flow. We propose a framework for such interaction and apply it to build a model of stock market dynamics which we study both empirically and theoretically. We demonstrate that this model replicates observed market behavior on all relevant timescales (from days to years) reasonably well. Using the model, we obtain and discuss a number of results that pose implications for current market theory and offer potential practical applications. Keywords: stock market, market dynamics, return predictability, news analysis, language patterns, investor behavior, herding, business cycle, sentiment evolution, reference sentiment level, volatility, return distribution, Ising, agent‐based models, price feedback, nonlinear dynamical systems. Page 1 of 97 Introduction There is a simple chain of events that leads to price changes. Prices change when investors buy or sell securities and it is the flow of information that influences the opinions of investors, according to which they make investment decisions.