Search Results
Showing results 1 to 7 of approximately 7.
(refine search)
Report
Merger options and risk arbitrage
Option prices embed predictive content for the outcomes of pending mergers and acquisitions. This is particularly important in merger arbitrage, where deal failure is a key risk. In this paper, I propose a dynamic asset pricing model that exploits the joint information in target stock and option prices to forecast deal outcomes. By analyzing how deal announcements affect the level and higher moments of target stock prices, the model yields better forecasts than existing methods. In addition, the model accurately predicts that merger arbitrage exhibits low volatility and a large Sharpe ratio ...
Report
Risk-neutral systemic risk indicators
This paper describes a set of indicators of systemic risk computed from current market prices of equity and equity index options. It displays results from a prototype version, computed daily from January 2006 to January 2013. The indicators represent a systemic risk event as the realization of an extreme loss on a portfolio of large-intermediary equities. The technique for computing them combines risk-neutral return distributions with implied return correlations drawn from option prices, tying together the single-firm return distributions via a copula to simulate the joint distribution and ...
Working Paper
Endogenous Option Pricing
We show that a structural model of firm decisions can produce very flexible implied volatility surfaces: upward and downward sloping, u-shaped. A calibrated version of the model is able to match many unconditional financial characteristics of the average option-able stock, and can help explain how, contrary to simple economic intuition, more valuable growth and contraction options are associated with a more negatively sloped implied volatility curve (i.e., a more negatively skewed implied distribution).
Working Paper
The Pricing Kernel in Options
The empirical option valuation literature specifies the pricing kernel through the price of risk, or defines it implicitly as the ratio of risk-neutral and physical probabilities. Instead, we extend the economically appealing Rubinstein-Brennan kernels to a dynamic framework that allows pathand volatility-dependence. Because of low statistical power, kernels with different economic properties can produce similar overall option fit, even when they imply cross-sectional pricing anomalies and implausible risk premiums. Imposing parsimonious economic restrictions such as monotonicity and ...
Working Paper
The Missing Tail Risk in Option Prices
This paper contributes to the literature on deviations from rational expectations in financial markets and to the literature on evaluating density forecasts. We first develop a novel statistic to evaluate the overall accuracy of distributional forecasts, and find two methods that yield accurate distributional forecasts. We then propose another statistic to examine the relative accuracy over the entire distribution range. Our results indicate more oil price realizations in the left tail than predicted. We argue that this finding points to a persistent behavioral forecasting bias and a ...
Report
Simple and reliable way to compute option-based risk-neutral distributions
This paper describes a method for computing risk-neutral density functions based on the option-implied volatility smile. Its aim is to reduce complexity and provide cookbook-style guidance through the estimation process. The technique is robust and avoids violations of option no-arbitrage restrictions that can lead to negative probabilities and other implausible results. I give examples for equities, foreign exchange, and long-term interest rates.
Working Paper
The Missing Tail Risk in Option Prices
This paper contributes to the literature on deviations from rational expectations in financial markets and to the literature on evaluating density forecasts. We first develop a novel statistic to evaluate the overall accuracy of distributional forecasts, and find two methods that yield accurate distributional forecasts. We then propose another statistic to examine the relative accuracy over the entire distribution range. Our results indicate more oil price realizations in the left tail than predicted. We argue that this finding points to a persistent behavioral forecasting bias and a ...