Return Intervals Analysis of the Hong Kong Stock Market

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the Hang Seng Index data for the 22-year period, from December 31, 1986, to June 6,2008 in the Hongkong stock market, a total of 5315 trading days. Using rescaled range method, we study how the threshold value q affects the correlations of the return intervals s r(τ ) between events above a certain threshold q. We find that: i) both return intervals obtained by different threshold q and the original series are arranged in long-range dependence behavior; ii) the correlations of the return intervals grow stronger when the threshold q is larger.