This paper provides a general framework that enables many existing inference methods for predictive accuracy to be used in applications that involve forecasts of latent target variables. Such applications include the forecasting of volatility, correlation, beta, quadratic variation, jump...

We define a new concept termed the activity signature function, which is constructed from discrete observations of a process evolving continuously in time. Under quite general regularity conditions, we derive the asymptotic properties of the function as the sampling frequency increases and show...

We show that the compensation for rare events accounts for a large fraction of the average equity and variance risk premia. Exploiting the special structure of the jump tails and the pricing thereof we identify and estimate a new Investor Fears index. The index suggests both large and...

We propose a new and flexible non-parametric framework for estimating the jump tails of Itô semimartingale processes. The approach is based on a relatively simple-to-implement set of estimating equations associated with the compensator for the jump measure, or its "intensity", that only...

The paper undertakes a non-parametric analysis of the very high frequency movements in stock market volatility using very finely sampled data on the S&P VIX index compiled by the CBOE. The data suggest that stock market volatility is best described as a pure jump process without a continuous...

This paper derives the asymptotic behavior of realized power variation of pure-jump It^o semimartingales as the sampling frequency within a fixed interval increases to infinity. We prove convergence in probability and an associated central limit theorem for the realized power variation as a...

We introduce a new measure constructed from high-frequency financial data which we call the Realized Laplace Transform of volatility. The statistic provides a nonparametric estimate for the empirical Laplace transform of the latent stochastic volatility process over a given interval of time....