We study the short-time asymptotics of conditional expectations of smooth and non-smooth functions of a (discontinuous) Ito semimartingale; we compute the leading term in the asymptotics in terms of the local characteristics of the semimartingale. We derive in particular the asymptotic behavior...

The main result of the paper is a formula for zero time-to-maturity limit of implied volatilities of European options under a broad class of stochastic volatility models. Based on this formula, we propose a closed-form approximation of the implied volatility smile. Numerical examples suggest...