We propose an approach to the valuation of payoffs in general semimartingale models of financial markets where prices are nonnegative. Each asset price can hit 0; we only exclude that this ever happens simultaneously for all assets. We start from two simple, economically motivated axioms, namely...

There is agreement regarding the fundamental role of transaction costs in determining currency options market efficiency. However, the estimation of transaction costs in this relationship is controversial. In this study, a bootstrapping approach is adapted to decompose the error term of the...

Prior research documents that volatility spreads predict stock returns. If the trading activity of informed investors is an important driver of volatility spreads, then the predictability of stock returns should be more pronounced during major information events. This paper investigates whether...

We use tick-by-tick quote data for 39 liquid US stocks and options on them, and we focus on events when the two markets disagree about the stock price in the sense that the option-implied stock price obtained from the put-call parity relation is inconsistent with the actual stock price. Option...

The birth and success of index option markets have fostered empirical research on their efficiency. While most of the literature focuses on North American markets, studies on European markets are still limited. The aim of the present paper is to provide further evidence on a European market, the...

Standard methodologies for the derivation of implied trees from option prices are based on the validity of the put-call parity. Muzzioli and Torricelli (2002) propose a methodology which accounts for PCP violations. Based on this latter approach the present paper advances in two main directions....

Market efficiency and the pricing kernel are closely related. A non-monotonic decreasing pricing kernel implies the existence of a trading strategy in contingent claims that stochastically dominates a direct investment in the market. Moreover, a market is assumed to be efficient only if no...

We examine how media coverage of fluctuations in the price of agricultural commodities affects these prices and their volatility. We develop a unified empirical framework to analyze the media's effects on both returns and volatility using insights from the literature. We use daily prices of...

A new alternative diffusion model for asset price movements is presented. In contrast to the popular approach of Brownian motion it proposes deterministic diffusion for the modelling of stock price movements. These diffusion processes are a new area of physical research and can be created by the...

This paper examines the determinants of the time it takes for an index options marketto be brought back to efficiency after put-call parity deviations, using intraday transactionsdata from the French CAC 40 index options over the August 2000 – July 2001 period. Weaddress this issue through...