Temporal evolution into a more efficient stock market

Using the price change and the log return of 10 stock market indices, we examine the temporal evolution of the time scale. The 10 stock markets had similar properties. Their log-return time series had patterns and long-range correlations until the mid-1990s. In the 2000s, however, the long-range correlations for most markets shortened, and the patterns weakened. These phenomena were due to advances in communication infrastructure such as the Internet and internet-based trading systems, which increased the speed of information dissemination. We examined the temporal evolution of the time scale in the markets by comparing the probability density function of log returns for the 2000s with that in the 1990s and by using the minimum entropy density method.