Numerous studies report that standard volatility models have low explanatory power, leading some researchers to question whether these models have economic value. We examine this question by using conditional mean-variance analysis to assess the value of volatility timing to short-horizon...

Wildcard options are embedded in many derivative contracts. They arise when the settlement price of the contract is established before the time at which the wildcard option holder must declare his intention to make or accept delivery and the exercise of the wildcard option closes out the...

We develop a new class of regime-switching volatility models that are characterized by high-dimensional state spaces, parsimonious transition matrices, and ARMA dynamics for the log volatility process. This combination of features is achieved by assuming that we can decompose the Markov chain...