  The minority game (MG) model introduced recently provides promising insights
into the understanding of the evolution of prices, indices and rates in the
financial markets. In this paper we perform a time series analysis of the model
employing tools from statistics, dynamical systems theory and stochastic
processes. Using benchmark systems and a financial index for comparison,
several conclusions are obtained about the generating mechanism for this kind
of evolut ion. The motion is deterministic, driven by occasional random
external perturbation. When the interval between two successive perturbations
is sufficiently large, one can find low dimensional chaos in this regime.
However, the full motion of the MG model is found to be similar to that of the
first differences of the SP500 index: stochastic, nonlinear and (unit root)
stationary.
