In 2008, the S&P 500 experienced a drawdown of about 50% from peak to trough. Many assets which are typically considered effective equity diversifiers also faced precipitous losses. In stark contrast, volatility levels as measured by VIX experienced significant increases and in 2008 repeatedly...

Do order flows in index derivatives play an informational role? Weekly index put order flow on the International Securities Exchange positively and robustly predicts weekly S&P 500 index returns. This result obtains mainly for net put buying and is stronger in high VIX periods and in periods...

Coval and Shumway (2001) show that under certain simple assumptions the expected returns to call options should be higher than the expected returns to their underlying assets, and increasing in the strike price. The authors find empirical support for these predictions by studying index option...

Buy-Write and Put-Write strategies have been shown to match market returns with lower volatility resulting in higher risk-adjusted performance. The strategies benefit from the fact that implied volatility of options is generally higher than actual realized volatility. In this paper we show that...

This paper employs Hasbrouck's (2003) information share method to analyze the flow of information in equity markets. In particular we compare trading in Index ETFs with that of their underlying securities. Surprisingly, ETFs seem to play a significant role in the price discovery process, rather...

We examine the option-implied volatility of the three most liquid ETFs (Diamonds, Spiders, and Cubes) and their respective tracking indices (Dow 30, S&P 500, and NASDAQ 100). We find that volatility smiles for ETF options are more pronounced than for index options, primarily because...

We explore the use of an option selling overlay to improve portfolio rebalancing. Within a multi-asset class portfolio, portfolio weights deviate from targets as asset values fluctuate. Investors typically use a rebalancing process to bring portfolio weights back to their desired strategic...

Purpose - This article aims to present a new strategy of portfolio selection.Design/methodology/approach - After having made a comparative survey of different strategies of portfolio selection adopted by portfolio managers in Tunisia, we propose a new strategy, which we call weighted...