MarketFlow: An Innovative Application for Visualisation of Financial Market Behavior using Streamgraphs: Visualization Challenge Finalist

MarketFlow is a pioneering web application for the graphical presentation of aggregate financial market behavior using a new streamgraph visualization technique. It provides rapid assimilation and insights into the underlying dynamics of complex systems, like financial markets, in a form that is quantitatively precise, informative, and aesthetically appealing. Applying streamgraph analysis to the data of eResearch Australasia 2009 visualization challenge captures the universality of power law systems, and the fascinating patterns they exhibit. As well, MarketFlow makes visible the intriguing parallels between man-made (economic) systems and natural (for example, geologic) ones. While the timescales for these systems can be vastly different, the trends they exhibit, and the critical point phenomena that forms part of their time evolution point out the importance of obtaining better understanding.