IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jfutmk/v42y2022i4p668-691.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Option‐implied moments and the cross‐section of stock returns

Author

Listed:
  • Lykourgos Alexiou
  • Leonidas S. Rompolis

Abstract

We construct a joint score measure using option‐implied volatility, skewness, and kurtosis gauging investors' expectations about favorable future return distribution properties. The high–low decile portfolio formed on this measure earns a statistically significant 0.75% value‐weighted average monthly return. Risk‐adjusted returns are significant and robust when controlling for various characteristics. The positive abnormal return of the spread portfolio can be explained by its exposure to aggregate volatility risk when investors' sentiment is low. When sentiment is high, it is also driven by information flow from the options to the stock market for stocks perceived to be as relatively mispriced.

Suggested Citation

  • Lykourgos Alexiou & Leonidas S. Rompolis, 2022. "Option‐implied moments and the cross‐section of stock returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 668-691, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jfutmk:v:42:y:2022:i:4:p:668-691
    DOI: 10.1002/fut.22304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/fut.22304
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/fut.22304?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baeho Kim & Da‐Hea Kim & Haehean Park, 2020. "Informed options trading on the implied volatility surface: A cross‐sectional approach," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(5), pages 776-803, May.
    2. Borochin, Paul & Chang, Hao & Wu, Yangru, 2020. "The information content of the term structure of risk-neutral skewness," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 247-274.
    3. Bali, Turan G. & Cakici, Nusret & Whitelaw, Robert F., 2011. "Maxing out: Stocks as lotteries and the cross-section of expected returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 427-446, February.
    4. Jennifer Conrad & Robert F. Dittmar & Eric Ghysels, 2013. "Ex Ante Skewness and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(1), pages 85-124, February.
    5. Avramov, Doron & Chordia, Tarun & Jostova, Gergana & Philipov, Alexander, 2013. "Anomalies and financial distress," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 139-159.
    6. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    7. Frazzini, Andrea & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2014. "Betting against beta," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 1-25.
    8. Brian Boyer & Todd Mitton & Keith Vorkink, 2010. "Expected Idiosyncratic Skewness," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 169-202, January.
    9. Shen, Junyan & Yu, Jianfeng & Zhao, Shen, 2017. "Investor sentiment and economic forces," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-21.
    10. Byeong-Je An & Andrew Ang & Turan G. Bali & Nusret Cakici, 2014. "The Joint Cross Section of Stocks and Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2279-2337, October.
    11. Guo, Hui & Qiu, Buhui, 2014. "Options-implied variance and future stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 93-113.
    12. Robert F. Stambaugh & Jianfeng Yu & Yu Yuan, 2015. "Arbitrage Asymmetry and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1903-1948, October.
    13. Baltussen, Guido & van Bekkum, Sjoerd & van der Grient, Bart, 2018. "Unknown Unknowns: Uncertainty About Risk and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(4), pages 1615-1651, August.
    14. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia & Dilip Madan, 2003. "Stock Return Characteristics, Skew Laws, and the Differential Pricing of Individual Equity Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 101-143.
    15. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    16. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    17. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    18. Haehean Park & Baeho Kim & Hyeongsop Shim, 2019. "A smiling bear in the equity options market and the cross‐section of stock returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(11), pages 1360-1382, November.
    19. Fred D. Arditti, 1967. "Risk And The Required Return On Equity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 19-36, March.
    20. Barinov, Alexander, 2018. "Stocks with extreme past returns: Lotteries or insurance?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(3), pages 458-478.
    21. Luis Goncalves-Pinto & Bruce D. Grundy & Allaudeen Hameed & Thijs van der Heijden & Yichao Zhu, 2020. "Why Do Option Prices Predict Stock Returns? The Role of Price Pressure in the Stock Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 3903-3926, September.
    22. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    23. Xing, Yuhang & Zhang, Xiaoyan & Zhao, Rui, 2010. "What Does the Individual Option Volatility Smirk Tell Us About Future Equity Returns?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(3), pages 641-662, June.
    24. Clifford S. Asness & Andrea Frazzini & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2019. "Quality minus junk," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 34-112, March.
    25. Scott, Robert C & Horvath, Philip A, 1980. "On the Direction of Preference for Moments of Higher Order Than the Variance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(4), pages 915-919, September.
    26. Campbell, John Y, 1993. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing without Consumption Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 487-512, June.
    27. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    28. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    29. Petkova, Ralitsa & Zhang, Lu, 2005. "Is value riskier than growth?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 187-202, October.
    30. Robert Battalio & Paul Schultz, 2006. "Options and the Bubble," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2071-2102, October.
    31. Przemysław S. Stilger & Alexandros Kostakis & Ser-Huang Poon, 2017. "What Does Risk-Neutral Skewness Tell Us About Future Stock Returns?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1814-1834, June.
    32. Assaf Eisdorfer & Efdal Ulas Misirli, 2020. "Distressed Stocks in Distressed Times," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2452-2473, June.
    33. Gollier, Christian & Pratt, John W, 1996. "Risk Vulnerability and the Tempering Effect of Background Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1109-1123, September.
    34. Black, Fischer, 1972. "Capital Market Equilibrium with Restricted Borrowing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(3), pages 444-455, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohrschladt, Hannes & Schneider, Judith C., 2021. "Option-implied skewness: Insights from ITM-options," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    2. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, December.
    3. Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Kagkadis, Anastasios & Philip, Dennis & Tuneshev, Ruslan, 2018. "Differences in options investors’ expectations and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 315-336.
    4. Gkionis, Konstantinos & Kostakis, Alexandros & Skiadopoulos, George & Stilger, Przemyslaw S., 2021. "Positive stock information in out-of-the-money option prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    5. Paul Schneider & Christian Wagner & Josef Zechner, 2020. "Low‐Risk Anomalies?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2673-2718, October.
    6. Mohrschladt, Hannes & Langer, Thomas, 2020. "Biased information weight processing in stock markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 89-106.
    7. Hannes Mohrschladt & Judith C. Schneider, 2021. "Idiosyncratic volatility, option-based measures of informed trading, and investor attention," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 197-220, October.
    8. Byun, Suk-Joon & Kim, Da-Hea, 2016. "Gambling preference and individual equity option returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 155-174.
    9. Jang, Jeewon & Kang, Jangkoo, 2019. "Probability of price crashes, rational speculative bubbles, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 222-247.
    10. Tong Suk Kim & Heewoo Park, 2018. "Is stock return predictability of option‐implied skewness affected by the market state?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(9), pages 1024-1042, September.
    11. Melisa Ozdamar & Levent Akdeniz & Ahmet Sensoy, 2021. "Lottery-like preferences and the MAX effect in the cryptocurrency market," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, December.
    12. Huang, Tao & Li, Junye, 2019. "Option-Implied variance asymmetry and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 21-36.
    13. Bressan, Silvia & Weissensteiner, Alex, 2021. "The financial conglomerate discount: Insights from stock return skewness," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    14. Hollstein, Fabian & Nguyen, Duc Binh Benno & Prokopczuk, Marcel, 2019. "Asset prices and “the devil(s) you know”," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 20-35.
    15. Kazuhiro Hiraki & George Skiadopoulos, 2018. "The Contribution of Frictions to Expected Returns," Working Papers 874, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    16. Xu, Zhongxiang & Li, Xiafei & Chevapatrakul, Thanaset & Gao, Ning, 2022. "Default risk, macroeconomic conditions, and the market skewness risk premium," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Elyasiani, Elyas & Gambarelli, Luca & Muzzioli, Silvia, 2020. "Moment risk premia and the cross-section of stock returns in the European stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    18. Haehean Park & Baeho Kim & Hyeongsop Shim, 2019. "A smiling bear in the equity options market and the cross‐section of stock returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(11), pages 1360-1382, November.
    19. Ang, Tze Chuan ‘Chewie’ & Lam, F.Y. Eric C. & Wei, K.C. John, 2020. "Mispricing firm-level productivity," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 139-163.
    20. Sumit Saurav & Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla & Jayanth R. Varma, 2024. "Role of derivatives market in attenuating underreaction to left‐tail risk," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(3), pages 484-517, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jfutmk:v:42:y:2022:i:4:p:668-691. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0270-7314/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.