Since understanding and quantifying the evolution of security co-movements is critical for asset pricing and portfolio allocation, we investigate patterns and trends in correlations over time using weekly returns for large systems of developed markets (DMs) and emerging markets (EMs) during the...

The cross-section of stock returns has substantial exposure to risk captured by higher moments in market returns. We estimate these moments from daily S&P 500 index option data. The resulting time series of factors are thus genuinely conditional and forward-looking. Stocks with high...

The extended Kalman filter, which linearizes the relationship between security prices and state variables, is widely used in fixed income applications. We investigate if the unscented Kalman filter should be used to capture nonlinearities, and compare the performance of the Kalman filter to that...

The four equity market factors from Fama and French (1993) and Carhart (1997) are pervasive in academic empirical asset pricing studies and in applied portfolio allocation. However, the joint distributional dynamics of the factors are rarely studied. For investors basing strategies on the...

We survey the recent academic literature that uses option-implied information to construct equity portfolios. Studies show that equity managers can earn a positive alpha by using information in individual equity options, by using stocks' exposure to information in market index options, and by...

After the financialization of commodity futures markets in 2004-05 oil volatility has become a strong predictor of returns and volatility of the overall stock market. Furthermore, stocks' exposure to oil volatility risk now drives the cross-section of expected returns. The difference in average...

We present a new discrete-time GARCH jump framework that allows for rich dynamics in higher moments by combining heteroskedastic processes with fat-tailed innovations in returns and volatility. We provide a tractable risk neutralization framework allowing for option valuation with separate...

This chapter surveys the methods available for extracting information from option prices that can be used in forecasting. We consider option-implied volatilities, skewness, kurtosis, and densities. More generally, we discuss how any forecasting object which is a twice differentiable function of...