This chapter surveys the methods available for extracting forward-looking information from option prices. We consider volatility, skewness, kurtosis, and density forecasting. More generally, we discuss how any forecasting object which is a twice differentiable function of the future realization...

We include simultaneously both realized volatility measures based on high-frequency asset returns and implied volatilities backed out of individual traded at the money option prices in a state space approach to the analysis of true underlying volatility. We model integrated volatility as a...

We propose a simple model in which realized stock market return volatility and implied volatility backed out of option prices are subject to common level shifts corresponding to movements between bull and bear markets. The model is estimated using the Kalman filter in a generalization to the...

What drives volatility on financial markets? This paper takes a comprehensive look at the predictability of financial market volatility by macroeconomic and financial variables. We go beyond forecasting stock market volatility (by large the focus in previous studies) and additionally investigate...

Models for the conditional joint distribution of the U.S. Dollar/Japanese Yen and Euro/Japanese Yen exchange rates, from November 2001 until June 2007, are evaluated and compared. The conditional dependency is allowed to vary across time, as a function of either historical returns or a...

Predictive return regressions with persistent regressors are typically plagued by (asymptotically) biased/inconsistent estimates of the slope, non-standard or potentially even spurious statistical inference, and regression unbalancedness. We alleviate the problem of unbalancedness in the...

Stock return predictability is subject to great uncertainty. In this paper we use the model confidence set approach to quantify uncertainty about expected utility from investment, accounting for potential return predictability. For monthly US data and six representative return prediction models,...

Yes. We use intraday data to compute weekly realized variance, skewness and kurtosis for individual equities and assess whether this week?s realized moments predict next week?s stock returns in the cross-section. We sort stocks each week according to their past realized moments, form decile...

We introduce a multivariate GARCH model that utilizes and models realized measures of volatility and covolatility. The realized measures extract information contained in high-frequency data that is particularly beneficial during periods with variation in volatility and covolatility. Applying the...

Out-of-sample tests of forecast performance depend on how a given data set is split into estimation and evaluation periods, yet no guidance exists on how to choose the split point. Empirical forecast evaluation results can therefore be difficult to interpret, particularly when several values of...