Options on Foreign Exchange and Exchange Rate Expectations

This paper tests alternative assumptions concerning the time-series behavior of foreign exchange rates. Data for about 20,000 individual trades on foreign exchange options for dollar exchange rates against six major currencies carried out from February 1983 to June 1985 are analyzed. The tests carried out suggest that, judging from the predictions of a model of options prices based on the assumption that exchange rates follow a diffusion process, market participants paid too high a price for call options that would have been profitable only if the dollar depreciated substantially within a short time period. An alternative model which allows for discrete jumps in exchange rates is found to be more consistent with the data.