In this paper we introduce a discrete time pricing model for a European call option when the log-return of the underlying stock (asset) is subject to discontinuous market regime type of shifts in its mean or volatility whose risk can be priced in the market. The paper shows how to estimate this...

We examine empirical “puzzles” documented in several high profile studies of the market for S&P 500 index options, such as the overpricing of out-of-the money (OTM) put options and at-the-money (ATM) straddles. We find that without any exception the theoretical bases of these studies have...

We study the problem of detecting structural instability of factor strength in asset pricing models for financial returns. We allow for strong and weaker factors, in which the sum of squared betas grows at a rate equal to and slower than the number of test assets, respectively: this growth rate...

We develop a finite-sample procedure to test for mean-variance efficiency and spanning without imposing any parametric assumptions on the distribution of model disturbances. In so doing, we provide an exact distribution-free method to test uniform linear restrictions in multivariate linear...

We forecast monthly Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) using option market data and four different econometric techniques. Independently from the econometric approach used, all models produce quick to estimate forward-looking risk measures that do not depend from the amount...

We propose a new measure of time-varying tail risk that is directly estimable from the cross section of returns. We exploit firm-level price crashes every month to identify common fluctuations in tail risk across stocks. Our tail measure is significantly correlated with tail risk measures...

We derive generalized bounds on conditional expected excess returns. The bounds deliver consistent expected returns for individual and index-type assets, are conditionally tight, account for all risk-neutral moments of returns, and outperform runner-up models for out-of-sample predictions....

Many asset pricing theories treat the cross-section of returns volatility and correlations as two intimately related quantities driven by common factors, which hinders achieving a neat definition of a correlation premium. We formulate a model without factors, but with a continuum of securities...

Current R&D expenditures forecast cash-based operating profitability up to three years in the future and sometimes as much as ten years, but do not forecast asset growth. High R&D firms have positive loadings on a cash-based operating profitability factor, and zero alphas. Capitalizing R&D to...