Recent studies find that a long position in at-the-money straddles consistently yields losses. This is interpreted as evidence for the non-redundancy of options and as a risk premium for volatility risk. This article analyzes this risk premium in more detail by 1) assessing the return properties...

We comprehensively analyze the predictive power of several option implied variables for monthly S & P 500 excess returns and realized variance. The correlation risk premium (CRP) emerges as a strong predictor of both excess returns and realized variance. This is true both in- and out-of-sample....

Reliable excess returns from active portfolio management derive from informed trading. We investigate the information content of informed trading in the equity market and the options market. We find that informed equity trading and options trading are positively correlated in the time-series,...

How do option and equity markets interact with each other? This is the central question that is answered from three different angles in this dissertation. The first Chapter discusses how option-implied information is incorporated into equity markets. Based on a novel rescaled option-implied...