When they want to see how complex systems work, scientists often turn to asynchronous-time simulation, which allows processes to change sporadically over time, typically at irregular intervals. While rarely used in finance today, such models may turn out to be valuable tools for understanding...

An asynchronous discrete-time model run in "dynamic mode" can model the effects on market prices of changes in strategies, leverage, and regulations, or the effects of different return estimation procedures and different trading rules. Run in "equilibrium mode," it can be used to arrive at...