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Undergraduate Paper Session

‟An Exploratory Approach to Detecting Structural Breaks in FAANG Stock Returns Using Mean Shift Clustering” by Ryan Legg <rlegg@student.citadel.edu>, The Citadel (Accepted)
Coauthors:

Abstract:

This paper takes a hands-on, exploratory look at whether Mean Shift clustering—a nonparametric method that does not force the data into any particular model—can highlight structural breaks or unusual behavior in FAANG stock returns from 2015 2025. By pairing daily log returns with a rolling volatility measure, we create a simple two-dimensional space that turns each trading day into a point whose location reflects its overall market conditions. The algorithm, developed in python, naturally identifies one large, stable region of data along with several much smaller groups of days that behave differently. To get a better sense of how typical this dominant regime is, a Q–Q plot is used to check how closely its return distribution resembles a normal one. Non dominant clusters are then compared with well-known periods of market stress. The goal of this paper is not to build a predictive tool, but to understand how a flexible, nonparametric clustering method can help reveal market shifts in an intuitive way.

Scheduled for: 2026-03-28 10:00 AM: Undergraduate Paper Session #5.1 in Computing and Math 325