This paper examines empirically the value of early exercise by testing the ability of two American put valuation models to predict the early exercise premium for the S&P100 American put options. An accuracy test and a quality test are performed on (1) the MacMillan (1986) & Barone-Adesi and...

We conduct an extensive empirical analysis of VIX derivative valuation models before, during and after the 2008-2009 fi nancial crisis. Since the restrictive mean reversion and heteroskedasticity features of existing models yield large distortions during the crisis, we propose generalisations...

Using prices of both S&P 500 options and recently introduced VIX options, we study asset pricing implications of volatility risk. While pointing out the joint pricing kernel is not identified nonparametrically, we propose model-free estimates of marginal pricing kernels of the market return and...

Option market activity increases by more than 10 percent in the four days before quarterly earnings announcements. We show that the direction of this pre-announcement trading foreshadows subsequent earnings news. Specifically, we find option traders initiate a greater proportion of long (short)...

In this paper, we consider hedging and pricing of illiquid options on an untradable underlying asset, where an alternative instrument is used as a hedging instrument. We assume that the trade price of the hedging instrument is subject to market impacts caused by the hedger, as well as the...

We formally compare two versions of the market Variance Risk Premium (VRP) measured in the equity and option markets. Both VRPs follow common patterns and respond similarly to changes in volatility and economic conditions. However, we reject the null hypothesis that they are identical and find...

Are options on more volatile assets expected to provide higher or lower return? Using analytics, we show the ambiguous nature of the answer when the volatility differential is due to the systematic/priced risk. Here the difference in the expected return of the assets also matters and has an...

We present a novel empirical benchmark for analyzing credit risk using “pseudo firms” that purchase traded assets financed with equity and zero-coupon bonds. By no-arbitrage, pseudo bonds are equivalent to Treasuries minus put options on pseudo-firm assets. Empirically, like corporate...

In this paper, we explore the relation between information uncertainty and S&P 500 index option returns. Since underlying state variable affecting economy is unobservable, investors have to obtain their own estimations based on available information. During such procedure, it is inevitable that...

This paper shows that option trading does not reduce overpricing in the underlying stock market. A popular view in the literature is that options lower short selling cost, therefore, they allow stock prices to better incorporate negative information and opinions. Testing such a hypothesis is...