In a tractable stochastic volatility model, we identify the price of the smile as the price of the unspanned risks traded in SPX option markets. The price of the smile reflects two persistent volatility and skewness risks, which imply a downward sloping term structure of low-frequency variance...

It is argued that the growth in the breadth of option strikes traded after the financial crisis of 2008 poses difficulties for the use of Fourier inversion methodologies in volatility surface calibration. Continuous time Markov chain approximations are proposed as an alternative. They are shown...

A barrier option is a financial derivative which includes an activation (or deactivation) clause within a standard vanilla option. For instance, a copper mining company could secure to sell in at least K dollars each ton of copper during the next year, by buying M European put options. However,...

We study the real-time characteristics and drivers of jumps in option prices. To this end, we employ high frequency data from the 24-hour E-mini S&P 500 options market. We find that option prices do not jump simultaneously across strikes and maturities and are uncorrelated with jumps in the...

With the success of variable annuities, insurance companies are piling up large risks in terms of both equity and fixed income assets. These risks should be properly modeled as the resulting dynamic hedging strategy is very sensitive to the modeling assumptions. The current literature has been...

This article investigates option models in the encompassing class of stochastic volatility, return-jumps, and volatility-jumps. Relying on individual equity options on the 50 most active firms and maximum likelihood estimation method, we obtain several findings. First, while stochastic...

We provide first-time evidence of the real-time characteristics and drivers of jumps in option prices. To this end, we employ high-frequency data from the 24-hour E-mini S&P 500 options market. We find that option prices do not jump simultaneously across strikes and maturities and are...

We develop an equilibrium pricing model aimed at explaining observed characteristics in equity returns, VIX futures and VIX options data. To derive our model we first specify a general framework based on affine jump-diffusive state-dynamics and representative agent endowed with Duffie-Epstein...

Classical quantitative finance models such as the Geometric Brownian Motion or its later extensions such as local or stochastic volatility models do not make sense when seen from a physics-based perspective, as they are all equivalent to a negative mass oscillator with a noise. This paper...