IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/8268.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Variance risk, financial intermediation, and the cross-section of expected option returns

Author

Listed:
  • Ziegler, Alexandre
  • Schürhoff, Norman

Abstract

We explore the pricing of variance risk by decomposing stocks' total variance into systematic and idiosyncratic return variances. While systematic variance risk exhibits a negative price of risk, common shocks to the variances of idiosyncratic returns carry a large positive risk premium. This implies investors pay for insurance against increases (declines) in systematic (idiosyncratic) variance, even though both variances comove countercyclically. Common idiosyncratic variance risk is an important determinant for the cross-section of expected option returns. These findings reconcile several phenomena, including the pricing differences between index and stock options, the cross-sectional variation in stock option expensiveness, the volatility mispricing puzzle, and the significant returns earned on various option portfolio strategies. Our results are consistent with theories of financial intermediation under capital constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • Ziegler, Alexandre & Schürhoff, Norman, 2011. "Variance risk, financial intermediation, and the cross-section of expected option returns," CEPR Discussion Papers 8268, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8268
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP8268
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Britten‐Jones & Anthony Neuberger, 2000. "Option Prices, Implied Price Processes, and Stochastic Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 839-866, April.
    2. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    3. Jin-Chuan Duan & Jason Wei, 2009. "Systematic Risk and the Price Structure of Individual Equity Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1981-2006, May.
    4. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    5. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    6. Igor Makarov & Guillaume Plantin, 2015. "Rewarding Trading Skills without Inducing Gambling," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(3), pages 925-962, June.
    7. Andrea Buraschi & Paolo Porchia & Fabio Trojani, 2010. "Correlation Risk and Optimal Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 393-420, February.
    8. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia, 2003. "Delta-Hedged Gains and the Negative Market Volatility Risk Premium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 527-566.
    9. 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.
    10. Joost Driessen & Pascal J. Maenhout & Grigory Vilkov, 2009. "The Price of Correlation Risk: Evidence from Equity Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1377-1406, June.
    11. Campbell, John Y, 1993. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing without Consumption Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 487-512, June.
    12. Itamar Drechsler & Amir Yaron, 2011. "What's Vol Got to Do with It," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(1), pages 1-45.
    13. Sentana, Enrique, 2004. "Factor representing portfolios in large asset markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 257-289, April.
    14. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:3:p:975-1008 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2004. "Variance Risk Premia," Finance 0409015, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Sentana, Enrique & Fiorentini, Gabriele, 2001. "Identification, estimation and testing of conditionally heteroskedastic factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 143-164, June.
    17. George J. Jiang & Yisong S. Tian, 2005. "The Model-Free Implied Volatility and Its Information Content," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1305-1342.
    18. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    19. Goyal, Amit & Saretto, Alessio, 2009. "Cross-section of option returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 310-326, November.
    20. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. José Da Fonseca & Martino Grasselli & Florian Ielpo, 2011. "Hedging (Co)Variance Risk With Variance Swaps," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(06), pages 899-943.
    22. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2009. "Variance Risk Premiums," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1311-1341, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Juan M. Londono & Mary Tian, 2014. "Bank Interventions and Options-based Systemic Risk: Evidence from the Global and Euro-area Crisis," International Finance Discussion Papers 1117, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Kanne, Stefan & Korn, Olaf & Uhrig-Homburg, Marliese, 2023. "Stock illiquidity and option returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Kanne, Stefan & Korn, Olaf & Uhrig-Homburg, Marliese, 2016. "Stock Illiquidity, option prices, and option returns," CFR Working Papers 16-08, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).

    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. Della Corte, Pasquale & Sarno, Lucio & Tsiakas, Ilias, 2011. "Spot and forward volatility in foreign exchange," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 496-513, June.
    2. Barras, Laurent & Malkhozov, Aytek, 2016. "Does variance risk have two prices? Evidence from the equity and option markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 79-92.
    3. Bollerslev, Tim & Gibson, Michael & Zhou, Hao, 2011. "Dynamic estimation of volatility risk premia and investor risk aversion from option-implied and realized volatilities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 235-245, January.
    4. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "How does the market variance risk premium vary over time? Evidence from S&P 500 variance swap investment returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-75.
    5. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "How does the market variance risk premium vary over time? Evidence from S&P 500 variance swap investment returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-75.
    6. González-Urteaga, Ana & Rubio, Gonzalo, 2016. "The cross-sectional variation of volatility risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 353-370.
    7. Turan G. Bali & Hao Zhou, 2011. "Risk, uncertainty, and expected returns," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2011-45, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Juan M. Londono & Mary Tian, 2014. "Bank Interventions and Options-based Systemic Risk: Evidence from the Global and Euro-area Crisis," International Finance Discussion Papers 1117, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. 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).
    10. Mueller, Philippe & Stathopoulos, Andreas & Vedolin, Andrea, 2017. "International correlation risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 270-299.
    11. Bondarenko, Oleg, 2014. "Variance trading and market price of variance risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 180(1), pages 81-97.
    12. Torben G. Andersen & Oleg Bondarenko, 2007. "Construction and Interpretation of Model-Free Implied Volatility," NBER Working Papers 13449, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Laurent Barras & Aytek Malkhozov, 2015. "Does variance risk have two prices? Evidence from the equity and option markets," BIS Working Papers 521, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Hollstein, Fabian & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2020. "Variance risk: A bird’s eye view," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 215(2), pages 517-535.
    15. Poshakwale, Sunil S. & Chandorkar, Pankaj & Agarwal, Vineet, 2019. "Implied volatility and the cross section of stock returns in the UK," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 271-286.
    16. Faria, Gonçalo & Kosowski, Robert & Wang, Tianyu, 2022. "The Correlation Risk Premium: International Evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    17. Prokopczuk, Marcel & Symeonidis, Lazaros & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2017. "Variance risk in commodity markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 136-149.
    18. Buss, Adrian & Vilkov, Grigory & ,, 2018. "Expected Correlation and Future Market Returns," CEPR Discussion Papers 12760, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Sankar, Ganesh & Ramachandran, Shankar & Lukose P J, Jijo, 2020. "Dynamics of variance risk premium: Evidence from India," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 321-334.
    20. Branger, Nicole & Muck, Matthias & Seifried, Frank Thomas & Weisheit, Stefan, 2017. "Optimal portfolios when variances and covariances can jump," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 59-89.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asset pricing; Cross-section of option returns; Financial intermediation; Variance risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage

    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:cpr:ceprdp:8268. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.