The large asset price jumps that took place during 2008 and 2009 disrupted volatility derivatives markets and caused the single-name variance swap market to dry up completely. This paper defines and analyzes a simple variance swap, a relative of the variance swap that in several respects has...

The large asset price jumps that took place during 2008 and 2009 disrupted volatility derivatives markets and caused the single-name variance swap market to dry up completely. This paper defines and analyzes a simple variance swap, a relative of the variance swap that in several respects has...

We derive a formula for the expected return on a stock in terms of the risk-neutral variance of the market and the stock's excess risk-neutral variance relative to the average stock. These quantities can be computed from index and stock option prices; the formula has no free parameters. The...

This paper presents a new lower bound on the equity premium in terms of a volatility index, SVIX, that can be calculated from index option prices. This bound, which relies only on very weak assumptions, implies that the equity premium is extremely volatile, and that it rose above 20% at the...