The Spread of the Credit Crisis: View from a Stock Correlation Network

Abstract

The credit crisis roiling the world's financial markets will likely take years and entire careers to fully understand and analyze. A short empirical investigation of the current trends, however, demonstrates that the losses in certain markets, in this case the US equity markets, follow a cascade or epidemic flow like model along the correlations of various stocks. A few images and explanation here will suffice to show the phenomenon. Also, whether the idea of "epidemic" or a "cascade" is a metaphor or model for this crisis will be discussed.

Keywords: networks, econophysics, equities, stock market, correlation, credit crisis

JEL Classification: G10, G15