This paper considers the problem of European option pricing in the presence of proportional transaction costs when the price of the underlying follows a jump diffusion process. Using an approach that is based on maximization of the expected utility of terminal wealth, we transform the option...

The standard shifted lognormal model, defined by just two parameters, provides a remarkably good fit to the market implied volatilities of VIX options.Inspired by an analytic approximation derived by Lee and Wang, we propose a simple, intuitive extension that provides better empirical fits while...

This thesis investigates the predictive power of the Skewness and Kurtosis Adjusted Black Scholes model of Corrado and Su (1996) (CS) model in pricing three Australian option contracts (ANZ, BHP and CBA) maturing in March, June, September and December, during the 2007/2008 financial crisis...

Options on futures traded in Europe, Australia and South Africa are subject to futures-style premium posting (FSPP): the premium is not paid up front but marked to market, and the last settlement premium paid upon exercise. The previous literature has derived pricing models for such options....

We provide evidence of a strong effect of the underlying stock's illiquidity on option prices by showing that the average absolute difference between historical and implied volatility increases with stock illiquidity. This pattern translates into significant excess returns of option trading...

We study the real-time characteristics and drivers of jumps in option prices. To this end, we employ high frequency data from the 24-hour E-mini S&P 500 options market. We find that option prices do not jump simultaneously across strikes and maturities and are uncorrelated with jumps in the...

We investigate the effect of including variance derivatives as calibration and hedging instruments for pricing and hedging exotic structures. This is studied empirically using market data for SPX and VIX derivatives applied in a stochastic volatility jump diffusion model

Financial markets exhibit high levels of volatility. Volatile markets are usually associated with high risks and uncertain investment returns. Financial institutions therefore, usually opt to hedge their investment portfolios against the high volatility using a suitable hedging structure. One...