The probability distribution of stock price changes is studied by analyzing a database (the Trades and Quotes Database) documenting
every trade for all stocks in three major US stock markets, for the two year period January 1994 - December 1995. A sample
of 40 million data points is extracted, which is substantially larger than studied hitherto. We find an asymptotic power-law
behavior for the cumulative distribution with an exponent
a » 3a \approx 3, well outside the Lévy regime
(0 < a < 2)(0 < \alpha < 2).
PACS. 89.90.+n Other areas of general interest to physicists
Received: 23 April 1998 / Revised and Accepted: 24 April 1998