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Community-level Contagion among Diverse Financial Assets

Nguyen, An Pham Ngoc orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-0041-9747, Bezbradica, Marija orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-9366-5113 and Crane, Martin orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-7598-3126 (2025) Community-level Contagion among Diverse Financial Assets. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, 205 (117858). pp. 1-27. ISSN 0960-0779

Abstract
As global financial markets become increasingly interconnected, financial contagion has developed into a major influencer of asset price dynamics. Motivated by this context, our study explores financial contagion both within and between asset communities. We contribute to the literature by examining the contagion phenomenon at the community level rather than among individual assets. Our experiments rely on high-frequency data comprising cryptocurrencies, stocks and US ETFs over the 4-year period from April 2019 to May 2023. Using the Louvain community detection algorithm, Vector Autoregression contagion detection model and Tracy-Widom random matrix theory for noise removal from financial assets, we present three main findings. Firstly, while the magnitude of contagion remains relatively stable over time, contagion density (the percentage of asset pairs exhibiting contagion within a financial system) increases. This suggests that market uncertainty is better characterized by the transmission of shocks more broadly than by the strength of any single spillover. Secondly, there is no significant difference between intra- and inter-community contagion, indicating that contagion is a system-wide phenomenon rather than being confined to specific asset groups. Lastly, certain communities themselves, especially those dominated by Information Technology assets, tend to act as major contagion transmitters in the financial network over the examined period, spreading shocks with high densities to many other communities. Our findings suggest that traditional risk management strategies such as portfolio diversification through investing in low-correlated assets or different types of investment vehicle might be insufficient due to widespread contagion.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Contagion, Community structure, Vector autoregression, Stock, Cryptocurrency, ETF
Subjects:Computer Science > Artificial intelligence
Physical Sciences > Statistical physics
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Engineering and Computing
DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Engineering and Computing > School of Computing
Research Institutes and Centres > ADAPT
Publisher:Elsevier
Official URL:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
Copyright Information:Authors
Funders:Taighde Éireann-Research Ireland under Grant Agreement No. 13/RC/2106_P2 at the ADAPT Centre at Dublin City University. ADAPT, the Research Ireland Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology, is funded through the Research Ireland Centres Programme.
ID Code:32155
Deposited On:09 Jan 2026 14:25 by Martin Crane . Last Modified 09 Jan 2026 14:25
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Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
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