Analyzing and Predicting Software Quality Trends Using Financial Patterns

The financial community assesses and analyzes fundamental qualities of stocks to predict their future performance. During the analysis different external and internal factors are considered which can affect the stock price. Financial analysts use indicators and analysis patterns, such as such as Moving Averages, Crossover patterns, and M-Top/W-Bottom patterns to determine stock price trends and potential trading opportunities. Similar to the stock market, also qualities of software systems are part of larger ecosystems which are affected by internal and external factors. Our research provides a cross disciplinary approach which takes advantages of these financial indicators and analysis patterns and re-applies them for the analysis and prediction of evolvability qualities in software system. We conducted several case studies to illustrate the applicability of our approach.