This analysis examines a simultaneous estimation option-based approach to forecast futures prices in the presence of daily price limit moves. The procedure explicitly allows for changing implied volatilities by estimating the implied futures price and the implied volatility simultaneously. Using 15 years of futures and futures options data for three agricultural commodities, we find that the si...

We propose a novel approach to predicting future volatility of company earnings, in this case EBITDA. Our approach combines predictions of a firm’s probability of default with insights from a relatively less popular a structural model of default. The source of the probabilities of default can be econometric, structural, reduced-form or other models or agency ratings, provided the source has hig...

In financial markets, errors in option hedging can arise from two sources. First, the option value is a nonlinear function of the underlying; therefore, hedging is instantaneous and hedging with discrete rebalancing gives rise to error. Frequent rebalancing can be impractical due to transaction costs. Second, errors in specifying the model for the underlying price movement (model specification ...

This paper investigates the role of scheduled news announcements in explaining the transmission of volatility, both within European markets and across U.S. and European ones. To this end, a novel approach is taken by employing a set of widely followed implied volatility indices. Aggregate, regional, and individual event dummies and surprise measures for U.S. and European news announcements are ...

Accurately quantifying and robustly hedging options embedded in the guarantees of variable annuities is a crucial task for insurance companies in preventing excessive liabilities. Due to sensitivities of the benefits to tails of the account value distribution, a simple Black-Scholes model is inadequate. A model which realistically describes the real world price dynamics over a long time horizon...

We extend back to 1890 the volatility implied by options index (VIX), available only since 1986, using the frequency of words on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal. News implied volatility (NVIX) captures well the disaster concerns of the average investor over this longer history. NVIX is particularly high during stock market crashes, times of policy-related uncertainty, world wars and f...

Since its introduction in 2003, volatility indices such as the VIX based on the model-free implied volatility (MFIV) have become the industry standard for assessing equity market volatility. MFIV suffers from estimation bias which typically underestimates volatility during extreme market conditions due to sparse data for options traded at very high or very low strike prices, Jiang and Tian (200...

The multivariate lognormal model is a basic pricing model for derivatives with multiple underlying processes, for example, spread options. However, the market observation of implied correlation skew examplifies how inaccurate the constant correlation assumption in the multivariate lognormal model can be. In this paper, we study alternative modeling approaches that generate implied correlation s...