We review some approaches to the understanding of fluctuations of financial asset prices. Our approach builds on the development of a simple Langevin equation that characterises stochastic processes. This provides a unifying approach that allows first a straightforward description of the early...

Ising or Potts models of ferromagnetism have been widely used to describe locally interacting social or economic systems. We consider a related model, introduced by Sznajd to describe the evolution of consensus in a society. In this model, the opinion or state of any spins can only be changed...

We develop a model of trading orders based on opinion dynamics. The agents may be thought as the share holders of a major mutual fund rather than as direct traders. The balance between their buy and sell orders determines the size of the fund order (volume) and has an impact on prices and...