IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6381.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stock Market Volatility: Ten Years After the Crash

Author

Listed:
  • G. William Schwert

Abstract

Stock volatility has been unusually low since the 1987 stock market crash. The large increase in stock prices since 1987 means that many days during 1996 and 1997 experienced near record changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, even though the volatility of stock returns has not been high by historical standards. I compare volatility of returns to U.S. stock indexes at monthly, daily, and intraday intervals, and I also show the volatility of returns to stock indexes implied by traded options contracts. Finally, I compare the volatility of U.S. stock market returns with the volatility of returns to stock markets in the United Kingdom Australia, and Canada. All of the evidence leads to the conclusion that volatility has been very low in the decade since the 1987 crash. The mini-crash of October 27 to reevaluate the current system of circuit breakers so that they are triggered less easily. Part of the problem is caused by trigger points that are expressed as absolute changes in market indexes.

Suggested Citation

  • G. William Schwert, 1998. "Stock Market Volatility: Ten Years After the Crash," NBER Working Papers 6381, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6381
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6381.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bates, David S, 1991. "The Crash of '87: Was It Expected? The Evidence from Options Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(3), pages 1009-1044, July.
    2. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "The Stock Market and Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(1), pages 115-131.
    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. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2014. "Static Hedging of Standard Options," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 3-46.
    2. Henry, Peter Blair, 2000. "Do stock market liberalizations cause investment booms?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 301-334.
    3. Atanda Mustapha Saidi, 2017. "Working Paper 273 - Stock (Mis)pricing and investment dynamics in Africa," Working Paper Series 2390, African Development Bank.
    4. Ozlem Goktas & Aycan Hepsag, 2011. "Do stock returns lead real economic activity? Evidence from seasonal cointegration analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2117-2127.
    5. Shaw, Charles, 2020. "Regimes, Non-Linearities, and Price Discontinuities in Indian Energy Stocks," MPRA Paper 104798, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. F Alexandre & P Bacao, 2006. "Investment and Non-fundamental Movements in Asset Prices: is there a role for monetary policy?," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 11(1), pages 65-95, March.
    7. JULES H. van BINSBERGEN & CHRISTIAN C. OPP, 2019. "Real Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(4), pages 1659-1706, August.
    8. Lee, Eugenia Y. & Ha, Wonsuk & Park, Sunyoung, 2023. "Auditor specialization in R&D and clients’ R&D investment-q sensitivity," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2).
    9. Kent Hargis & William F. Maloney, 1997. "Emerging Equity Markets: Are They For Real?," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 20(2), pages 243-262, June.
    10. Luca Vincenzo Ballestra & Enzo D’Innocenzo & Andrea Guizzardi, 2024. "Score-Driven Modeling with Jumps: An Application to S&P500 Returns and Options," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 375-406.
    11. Ahoniemi, Katja & Lanne, Markku, 2009. "Joint modeling of call and put implied volatility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 239-258.
    12. Jitka Hilliard & Wei Li, 2014. "Volatilities implied by price changes in the S&P 500 options and futures contracts," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 599-626, May.
    13. C. He & J. Kennedy & T. Coleman & P. Forsyth & Y. Li & K. Vetzal, 2006. "Calibration and hedging under jump diffusion," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 1-35, January.
    14. Marc Arnold & Dirk Hackbarth & Tatjana Xenia Puhan, 2018. "Financing Asset Sales and Business Cycles [Does industry-wide distress affect defaulted firms? Evidence from creditor recoveries]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 243-277.
    15. David M. Frankel, 2008. "Adaptive Expectations And Stock Market Crashes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(2), pages 595-619, May.
    16. Lambrinoudakis, Costas & Skiadopoulos, George & Gkionis, Konstantinos, 2019. "Capital structure and financial flexibility: Expectations of future shocks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-18.
    17. Ako Doffou & Jimmy E. Hilliard, 2001. "Pricing Currency Options Under Stochastic Interest Rates And Jump-Diffusion Processes," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 24(4), pages 565-585, December.
    18. Oyetayo Oluwatosin J & Adeyeye Patrick Olufemi, 2017. "A Robust Application of the Arbitrage Pricing Theory: Evidence from Nigeria," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 9(1), pages 141-151.
    19. Colombage, Sisira R.N., 2009. "Financial markets and economic performances: Empirical evidence from five industrialized economies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 339-348, September.
    20. Richards, Timothy J. & Manfredo, Mark R., 2003. "Infrequent Shocks and Rating Revenue Insurance: A Contingent Claims Approach," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 1-19, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:nbr:nberwo:6381. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.