Empirical distributions of Chinese stock returns at different microscopic timescales

We study the distributions of event-time returns and clock-time returns at different microscopic timescales using ultra-high-frequency data extracted from the limit-order books of 23 stocks traded in the Chinese stock market in 2003. We find that the returns at the one-trade timescale obey the inverse cubic law. For larger timescales (2-32 trades and 1-5 min), the returns follow the Student distribution with power-law tails. With the decrease in timescale, the tail becomes fatter, which is consistent with the variational theory in Turbulence. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.