Is there some connection between Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle and stock prices.

Question

As momentum is uncertain when we locate a particle, or location is uncertain when determine momentum, it seems to me this correlates to stock prices fairly well. For example, I can look at a level 2 screen, and pinpoint the exact stock price of XYZ at any moment throughtout the day, yet it's impossible for me to identify the momentum in either direction. Conversely, I can identify the momentum of the overall movement of the stock market, say the S@p 500 or Dow, yet I can't know the exact location (price) of all 500 components since they are constantly moving. There's gotta be someway using quantum mechanics, based on the uncertainty principle, to narrow the likelihood of where stock prices will move next, if somehow applied correctly. Both the stock market and particle physics are based on uncertainty, there's gotta be some connection. What do you think?

Answer 1

Mike, i like your thinking but i have to say no.

what is happening here, i suspect, is a confusion of words, and multiple meaning of one word. for example, you can bank a pool shot or bank your money or fish along the bank but they are not related.

Answer 2

There is NO connection between Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and stock prices.

But in both cases similar mathematics is used, the probability calculus.

Answer 3

It's not really the same thing.  In quantum mechanics, you can be certain about the position or the momentum.  In the stock market, you are always certain about the position, since you can go online and find an exact, up-to-date figure for any or all stock values.  By contrast, you can never be certain about the momentum - if you knew for sure whether the stock market was going up or down, you could quit your day job and make a fortune day trading.  Furthermore, you don't gain any knowledge about the "momentum" of the stock market by not looking at the values of individual stocks, so the uncertainty principle doesn't apply at all.

Answer 4

I think stocks are more uncertain than wave-particles.  For example, you would think that any classical particle should have continuous position and velocity, and for wave-particles the expectation values should also be continuous.  As far as I know, there is no ab initio reason to assume stock prices  are.  They can go from one price to another or from one direction to another on the next trade, essentially instantaneously. If they were deterministic, even on short time scales, then I think people could easily exploit the fact to make money.