Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a common procedure for the analysis of financial market data, such as implied volatility smiles or interest rate curves. Recently, Pelsser and Lord [11] raised the question whether PCA results may not be 'facts but artefacts'. We extend this line of research...

The foreign exchange options market is one of the largest and most liquid OTC derivative markets in the world. Surprisingly, very little is known in the academic literature about the construction of the most important object in this market: The implied volatility smile. The smile construction...