Estimating the Leverage Parameter of Continuous-time Stochastic Volatility Models Using High Frequency S&P 500 and VIX

This paper proposes a new method for estimating continuous-time stochastic volatility (SV) models for the S&P 500 stock index process using intraday high-frequency observations of both the S&P 500 index and the Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE) implied (or expected) volatility index (VIX). Intraday high-frequency observations data have become readily available for an increasing number of financial assets and their derivatives in recent years, but it is well known that attempts to directly apply popular continuous-time models to short intraday time intervals, and estimate the parameters using such data, can lead to nonsensical estimates due to severe intraday seasonality. A primary purpose of the paper is to provide a framework for using intraday high frequency data of both the index estimate, in particular, for improving the estimation accuracy of the leverage parameter, p, that is, the correlation between the two Brownian motions driving the diffusive components of the price process and its spot variance process, respectively. As a special case, we focus on Heston’s (1993) square-root SV model, and propose the realized leverage estimator for p, noting that, under this model without measurement errors, the “realized leverage,” or the realized covariation of the price and VIX processes divided by the product of the realized volatilities of the two processes, is in-fill consistent for p. Finite sample simulation results show that the proposed estimator delivers more accurate estimates of the leverage parameter than do existing methods.