We use a novel definition of tail risk for option pricing purposes, based on the concept of almost stochastic dominance (ASD) in order to examine empirical “puzzles” documented in several high profile studies of the market for S&P 500 index options. We find that with one exception these...

We show that the stochastic dominance (SD) approach to the valuation of index options in frictionless markets allows the derivation of a unique variance risk premium and price of volatility risk based only on the underlying return and volatility dynamics for a wide class of stochastic volatility...

The optimal portfolio of a utility-maximizing investor trading in the S&P 500 index and cash, subject to proportional transaction costs, becomes stochastically dominated when overlaid with a zero-net-cost portfolio of S&P 500 options bought at their ask and written at their bid price in most...

We examine empirical “puzzles” documented in several high profile studies of the market for S&P 500 index options, such as the overpricing of out-of-the money (OTM) put options and at-the-money (ATM) straddles. We find that without any exception the theoretical bases of these studies have...

We investigate the option-implied investor preferences by comparing equilibrium option pricing models under jump-diffusion to option bounds extracted from discrete-time stochastic dominance (SD). We show that the bounds converge to two prices that define an interval comparable to the observed...

The optimal portfolio of a utility-maximizing investor trading in the S&P 500 index and cash, subject to proportional transaction costs, becomes stochastically dominated when overlaid with a zero-net-cost portfolio of S&P 500 options bought at their ask and written at their bid price in most...

We present a theoretical methodology based on stochastic dominance for the pricing of catastrophe (CAT) derivatives with non-convex payoffs given the price of a CAT indexed futures contract. We do not assume a fully diversifiable CAT event risk, nor do we assume knowledge of the martingale...