On Clusters Formation in High Tech Stock Market

Stock Markets, like many other natural systems, are complex systems in a state of unstable equilibrium where future evolution depends on many parameters. Their evolution is characterized by different factors: political and social events, government policies, humour and strategy of the consumer environment. Even if attention has been focused on this system since the early years of the nineteen-century and many efforts are still concentrated on it, no valid and recognized model has been accepted by the scientific community. This paper aims at being a scientific contribution which tries to formalize the main features in the stock market topology. Cluster formation has been investigated in different time windows to identify specific properties. The analysis has been concluded in this case to highlight clusters in industrial sectors linked to the semiconductor industry and it has been focused on a big set of high-tech sectors quoted in the New York stock market. Copyright © 2005 IFAC