AUTHOR=Mahata Ajit , Nurujjaman Md. TITLE=Time Scales and Characteristics of Stock Markets in Different Investment Horizons JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physics VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2020 YEAR=2020 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.590623 DOI=10.3389/fphy.2020.590623 ISSN=2296-424X ABSTRACT=Investors adopt varied investment strategies depending on the time scales ($\tau$) of short-term and long-term investment time horizons ($ITH$). The nature of the market is very different in various investment $\tau$. Empirical mode decomposition ($EMD$) based Hurst exponents ($H$) and normalized variance ($NV$) techniques have been applied to identify the $\tau$ and characteristics of the market in different time horizons. The value of $H$ and $NV$ have been estimated for the decomposed intrinsic mode functions ($IMF$) of the stock price. We obtained $H_1=0.5\pm0.04$ and $H_1\geq 0.75$ for the $IMFs$ with $\tau$ ranging from a few days to 3 months, and $\tau\geq$ 5 months, respectively. Based on the value of $H_1$, two time series have been reconstructed from the $IMFs$: (a) short-term time series [$X_{ST} (t)$] with $H_1=0.5\pm 0.04$ and $\tau$ from a few days to 3 months; (b) long-term time series [$X_{LT} (t)$] with $H_1\geq0.75$ and $\tau\geq$ 5 months. The $X_{ST}(t)$ and $X_{LT} (t)$ show that market dynamics is random in short-term $ITH$ and correlated in long-term $ITH$. We have also found that the $NV$ is very small in the short-term ITH and gradually increases for long-term $ITH$. The results further show that the stock prices are correlated with the fundamental variables of the company in the long-term $ITH$. The finding may help the investors to design investment and trading strategies in both short-term and long-term investment horizons.