We discuss some apparently “universal” aspects observed in the empirical analysis of stock price dynamics in financial markets. Specifically we consider (i) the empirical behavior of the return probability density function and (ii) the content of economic information in financial time series.

We study the development of an emerging market – the Budapest Stock Exchange – by investigating the time evolution of some statistical properties of heavily traded stocks. Moving quarter by quarter over a period of two and a half years we analyze the scaling properties of the standard...