Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM 

Monday, December 14, 1998 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium 

Richard A. Mueller

ABSTRACT -- Since most of nature, from seasons to sunspots, is dominated by cycles, it is natural to expect cyclic activity in the financial markets.  Proper extraction of market cycles provides a powerful and accurate view of future turning points, both major and minor, in the market.  However, it is a formidable task to accurately perform the cycle extraction process.  The Fourier Transform is the basic first step, but it provides only a crude approximation of the necessary cyclic properties.  A complete mathematical methodology requires the solution of a system of non-linear equations, which has been developed and implemented on the computer through the MATLAB language.  Individual cycles are extracted through this process and then coherently integrated into a composite cyclic function to provide a cyclic prediction of future market activity.  The number of individual cycles extracted via this process ranges from 10 to 20, from major to minor cycles.  It is demonstrated that cycles play a powerful role in the financial markets and relates well with our experiences of nature and life.  

SPEAKER:  Dr. Richard A. Mueller graduated from Catholic University with a PhD in Physics and a minor in Mathematics and has worked in private industry on mathematical modeling, pattern recognition, and signal and system analyses, applying these methodologies to signals in the seismic, acoustic, radar, and laser domains.  He has also applied the techniques of signal analysis and pattern recognition to stock market activity, exploring in depth the cyclic activity in the stock market.