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Option markets and implied volatility: Past versus present

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  • Mixon, Scott

Abstract

Traders in the nineteenth century appear to have priced options the same way that twenty-first-century traders price options. Empirical regularities relating implied volatility to realized volatility, stock prices, and other implied volatilities (including the volatility skew) are qualitatively the same in both eras. Modern pricing models and centralized exchanges have not fundamentally altered pricing behavior, but they have generated increased trading volume and a much closer conformity in the level of observed and model prices. The major change in pricing is the sharp decline in implied volatility relative to realized volatility, evident immediately upon the opening of the CBOE.

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  • Mixon, Scott, 2009. "Option markets and implied volatility: Past versus present," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 171-191, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:94:y:2009:i:2:p:171-191
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    Cited by:

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    3. Seraina C. Anagnostopoulou & Aikaterini C. Ferentinou & Panagiotis A. Tsaousis & Andrianos E. Tsekrekos, 2018. "The Options Market Reaction to Bank Loan Announcements," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 53(1), pages 99-139, February.
    4. Aït-Sahalia, Yacine & Li, Chenxu & Li, Chen Xu, 2021. "Closed-form implied volatility surfaces for stochastic volatility models with jumps," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 222(1), pages 364-392.
    5. Sudarshan Kumar & Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla & Jayanth R. Varma & Vineet Virmani, 2023. "Harvesting the volatility smile in a large emerging market: A Dynamic Nelson–Siegel approach," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(11), pages 1615-1644, November.
    6. Bakshi, Gurdip & Panayotov, George & Skoulakis, Georgios, 2011. "Improving the predictability of real economic activity and asset returns with forward variances inferred from option portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 475-495, June.
    7. Anagnostopoulou, Seraina C. & Tsekrekos, Andrianos E., 2015. "Accounting quality, information risk and implied volatility around earnings announcements," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 188-207.
    8. Anagnostopoulou, Seraina C. & Tsekrekos, Andrianos E., 2017. "Accounting quality, information risk and the term structure of implied volatility around earnings announcements," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 445-460.
    9. Wurm, Laura, 2021. "Strangling speculation: The effect of the 1903 Viennese futures trading ban," QUCEH Working Paper Series 21-09, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    10. Sonali Jain & Jayanth R. Varma & Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla, 2019. "Indian equity options: Smile, risk premiums, and efficiency," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 150-163, February.
    11. Maria Cristina Marcuzzo & Eleonora Sanfilippo, 2016. "Keynes and the interwar commodity option markets," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 40(1), pages 327-348.
    12. Marc Bohmann & Vinay Patel, 2020. "Information Leakage in Energy Derivatives around News Announcements," Published Paper Series 2020-2, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    13. Jan Vlachý, 2014. "Empirická analýza obchodování s opcemi na akcie Škodových závodů 1928-1938 [An Empirical Analysis of Škoda Co. Equity Options Trading 1928-1938]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(5), pages 645-661.
    14. Ryszard Kokoszczyński & Natalia Nehrebecka & Paweł Sakowski & Paweł Strawiński & Robert Ślepaczuk, 2010. "Option Pricing Models with HF Data – a Comparative Study. The Properties of Black Model with Different Volatility Measures," Working Papers 2010-03, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    15. Guy Kaplanski & Haim Levy, 2017. "Seasonality in Perceived Risk: A Sentiment Effect," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(01), pages 1-21, March.
    16. David Chambers & Rasheed Saleuddin, 2020. "Commodity option pricing efficiency before Black, Scholes, and Merton," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(2), pages 540-564, May.
    17. Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla & Sumit Saurav & Jayanth R. Varma, 2022. "Lottery and bubble stocks and the cross‐section of option‐implied tail risks," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 231-249, February.
    18. Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla & Jayanth R. Varma & Vineet Virmani, 2021. "Rational repricing of risk during COVID‐19: Evidence from Indian single stock options market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(10), pages 1498-1519, October.
    19. Bams, Dennis & Blanchard, Gildas & Lehnert, Thorsten, 2017. "Volatility measures and Value-at-Risk," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 848-863.
    20. Haug, Espen Gaarder & Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, 2011. "Option traders use (very) sophisticated heuristics, never the Black-Scholes-Merton formula," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 97-106, February.
    21. Vipul Kumar Singh, 2013. "Effectiveness of volatility models in option pricing: evidence from recent financial upheavals," Journal of Advances in Management Research, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(3), pages 352-375, October.

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