In his highly provocative and otherwise brilliant book "Defending the Undefendable" (1991), Walter Block defends the private counterfeiting of state-counterfeited money. His argument fallaciously relies on an idiosyncratic linguistic definition of the counterfeiter, which is invalid from a legal...

We suggest that the term structure of VIX futures shows a clear pattern of dependence on the current level of VIX index. At the low levels of VIX (below 20), the term structure is highly upward sloping, while at the high VIX levels (over 30) it is strongly downward sloping. We use these features...

We suggest that the term structure of volatility futures (e.g. VIX futures) shows a clear pattern of dependence on the current level of VIX index. At the low level of VIX (below 20) the term structure is highly upward sloping; at the high VIX level (over 30) it is strongly downward sloping. We...

The article presents a simple parameterization of the volatility surface for options on the S&P 500 volatility index, VIX. Specifically, we document the following features of VIX implied volatility: (i) VIX at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility correlates strongly with the volatility skew in S&P...

This paper investigates the changes in the investment portfolio performance after including VIX. We apply different models for optimal portfolio selection (Markowitz and Black-Litterman) assuming both the possibility of short sale and the lack of it. We also use various assets, data frequencies,...

Central bank lending to commercial banks is typically collateralized which reduces central bank’s credit risk exposure to “double default events” when the counterparty and the issuer of the underlying collateral asset both default in a short period of time. This paper presents a simple...

The adjustment speed of delta hedged options exposure depends on the market realized and implied volatility. We observe that by consistently hedging long and short positions in options we can eventually end up with pure exposure to volatility without any options in the portfolio at all. The...

After the Lehman default, but also during the euro area sovereign debt crisis, central banks have tended to extend the ability of banks to take recourse to central bank credit operations through changes of the collateral framework (e.g. CGFS, 2008 - in consistence with previous narratives, such...

This paper presents a new, intuitive but mathematically powerful model of dependent defaults and derives a general framework for pricing products whose values depend on credit correlation between the counterparty and the reference entity. The dependence framework is a natural extension of the...