The need to understand and measure the determinants of market maker bid/ask spreads is crucial in evaluating the merits of competing market structures and the fairness of market maker rents. After providing a brief review of past work, this study develops a simple, parsimonious model for the...

This paper examines the relation between net buying pressure and the shape of the implied volatility function (IVF) of Samp;P 500 index options and options on twenty individual stocks. We find that time variation in the implied volatility of an option series is directly related to net buying...

This paper examines the effects of the nondiscretionary trading demands of VIX exchangetradedproducts (ETPs) issuers on the prices and volumes in the VIX futures. We find thatthe ETPs’ information-less, mechanical rebalancing of futures positions to maintain theconstant maturity of the index...

Volatility trading is in vogue. Launched in January 2009, exchange-traded products (ETPs) linked to the CBOE Market Volatility Index (VIX) have enamored no small number of traders judging by the billions of dollars invested in these new products. Why exactly is unclear. The most popular VIX ETPs...

Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD), imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2000, was designed to prohibit disclosure of material private information to selected market participants. The informational advantage such select participants gain is unclear. If multiple...

Black and Scholes (1973) implied volatilities tend to be systematically related to the option's exercise price and time to expiration. Derman and Kani (1994), Dupire (1994), and Rubinstein (1994) attribute this behavior to the fact that the Black-Scholes constant volatility assumption is...

Implied volatility quot;smilesquot; have been documented in a number of option markets worldwide. The volatilities implied by the Black-Scholes (1973) model tend to be systematically related to the option's exercise price and time to expiration. Derman and Kani (1994), Dupire (1994), and...

In frictionless and rational markets, perfect substitutes must have the same price. In markets with trading costs, however, price differences may be as large as the costs of executing the arbitrage between markets. Moreover, if trading costs differ, trading activity will tend to be concentrated...