# Has anyone ever done Fourier Analysis on the stock market? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2004, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676 "2004-10-22T20:56:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2004, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/1 "2004-10-22T20:56:39Z")
Title pretty much says it all…I know that even for really noisy signals (ie, astronomical data) Fourier Analysis can often reveal a repetetive pattern. Has anyone ever applied FA to stock market data? What was the outcome? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2004, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/2 "2004-10-22T21:28:52Z")
[Probably not what you looking for.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/) ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/3 "2004-10-22T21:37:17Z")
> [@Joey P](#): > > [Probably not what you looking for.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/) (a) What little math there is in there is awful. (b) Cohen was supposedly a number theorist, not a harmonic analyst. Yes, there’s analytic number theory, but he was really concerned throughout the examples with natural numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/4 "2004-10-22T21:39:36Z")
Errmm, no, not quite…good movie though. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/5 "2004-10-23T02:26:46Z")
> [@Trigonal Planar](#): > > Title pretty much says it all…I know that even for really noisy signals (ie, astronomical data) Fourier Analysis can often reveal a repetetive pattern. Has anyone ever applied FA to stock market data? What was the outcome? Don’t know but suspect some work has been done. There is plenty of data to support a Doctoral Thesis in mathematics or Business. Modern PC’s should make it a snap to work on various stocks and their relationship to each other, market averages, etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/6 "2004-10-23T02:40:02Z")
As easy as it would be to do, it’s very hard to believe that no one has. The only reason why they wouldn’t publish is that they can’t find anything interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/7 "2004-10-23T03:21:07Z")
Google turns up over 6,000 thits for [Fourier “stock market”](http://www.google.com/search?q=Fourier+%22stock+market%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&as_qdr=all&start=20&sa=N) Lots of snake oil, and debunking: [Stock Market Pseudoscience](http://www.theness.com/articles/stockmarket-cs0203.html) > [@](#): > > the technical system designer doesn’t even know how to quantify the variables underlying the market. Those who have tried to apply Fourier analysis to markets have found this out to their cost. Also a few like this: [Multifractal Spectral Analysis of the 1987 Stock Market Crash](http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:DUgmujaCuL0J:econwpa.wustl.edu:8089/eps/fin/papers/0409/0409050.pdf+Fourier+%22stock+market%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/8 "2004-10-23T04:27:44Z")
See [The Discrete Fourier Transform Illusion](http://www.meyersanalytics.com/publications/dft.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/9 "2004-10-23T04:51:23Z")
I rememeber quite a while back SciAm had an article about the fractal nature of the stock market (something about a random walk down wall street?). Anyway, I suspect wavelets would be more appropriate to stock market data since it doesn’t throw away time domain info and I can’t imagine theres no time related trends in stock market analysis. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-done-fourier-analysis-on-the-stock-market/270676/10 "2004-10-23T09:04:50Z")
Yes, there are people who have tried this. I used to work for a company that even sold its ‘analysis’ of trends in the currency markets to willing punters. There are also lots of snake oil sales creeps who claim to offer hot tips based on advanced analysis of one kind or another, often alloyed with (take your pick) ‘expert’ insider knowledge, access to privileged or restricted-but-legal information, meta-analysis of top tipsters and recommendations, faster delivery of crucial information and so on. It’s all rubbish and it doesn’t work. Here’s all you need to know: if someone were able to produce **any** kind of forecast pertaining to the markets which made it possible to achieve **any** kind of special financial profit, then they wouldn’t need customers. They wouldn’t need to sell their ‘information’ or ‘tips’ or ‘advice’ or ‘analysis’ to anyone, and they wouldn’t need all the attendant hassle (taking out advertising space, paying for it, submitting advertising copy, processing orders and so on). They could just sit at home all day and make money. By special I mean more than the average Joe can make from a perfectly normal portfolio of investment products obtained from the regulated market - brokers, banks, investment houses and so on. These can provide whatever mix of investments Joe wants, selecting from the normal spectrum of high risk/potential high gain at one end and low risk/low potential gain at the other.