Anti-Persistent Values of the Hurst Exponent Anticipate Mean Reversion in Pairs Trading: The Cryptocurrencies Market as a Case Study

Mar Grande, Florentino Borondo, Juan Carlos Losada and Javier Borondo ()
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Mar Grande: Grupo de Sistemas Complejos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Av Puerta de Hierro 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Florentino Borondo: Departamento de Química, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Juan Carlos Losada: Grupo de Sistemas Complejos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Av Puerta de Hierro 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Javier Borondo: AGrowingData, 04001 Almería, Spain

Mathematics, 2024, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-14

Abstract: Pairs trading is a short-term speculation trading strategy based on matching a long position with a short position in two assets in the hope that their prices will return to their historical equilibrium. In this paper, we focus on identifying opportunities where mean reversion will happen quickly, as the commission costs associated with keeping the positions open for an extended period of time can eliminate excess returns. To this end, we propose the use of the local Hurst exponent as a signal to open trades in the cryptocurrencies market. We conduct a natural experiment to show that the spread of pairs with anti-persistent values of Hurst revert to their mean significantly faster. Next, we verify that this effect is universal across pairs with different levels of co-movement. Finally, we back-test several pairs trading strategies that include H < 0.5 as an indicator and check that all of them result in profits. Hence, we conclude that the Hurst exponent represents a meaningful indicator to detect pairs trading opportunities in the cryptocurrencies market.

Keywords: pairs trading; efficient market; time series; cryptocurrencies; Hurst; prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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