The risk premium that never was: a fair value explanation of the volatility spread
The risk premium that never was: a fair value explanation of the volatility spread
We present a new framework to investigate the profitability of trading the volatility spread,
the upward bias on implied volatility as an estimator of future realized volatility. The scheme
incorporates the first four option-implied moments in a growth-optimal payoff that is statically
replicated using a portfolio of options. Removing the upward bias on implied volatility
worsens the likelihood score of risk neutral densities obtained from S&P500 index options
when they are used as forecasts of the underlying index return distribution. It also results
in negative expected capital growth when they are used in a volatility arbitrage scheme.
Our empirical finding is that the upward bias on implied volatility does not represent a long
term return premium, rather it is required to mitigate the large losses associated with tail
events when trading volatility in options markets.
Finance, Volatility Spread, Variance Premium, Tail Risk, Growth Optimal Portfolios
370-380
Mcgee, Richard J.
93f5c00c-a866-4e35-997e-60b817f40497
Mcgroarty, Francis
693a5396-8e01-4d68-8973-d74184c03072
October 2017
Mcgee, Richard J.
93f5c00c-a866-4e35-997e-60b817f40497
Mcgroarty, Francis
693a5396-8e01-4d68-8973-d74184c03072
Mcgee, Richard J. and Mcgroarty, Francis
(2017)
The risk premium that never was: a fair value explanation of the volatility spread.
European Journal of Operational Research, 262 (1), .
(doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2017.03.070).
Abstract
We present a new framework to investigate the profitability of trading the volatility spread,
the upward bias on implied volatility as an estimator of future realized volatility. The scheme
incorporates the first four option-implied moments in a growth-optimal payoff that is statically
replicated using a portfolio of options. Removing the upward bias on implied volatility
worsens the likelihood score of risk neutral densities obtained from S&P500 index options
when they are used as forecasts of the underlying index return distribution. It also results
in negative expected capital growth when they are used in a volatility arbitrage scheme.
Our empirical finding is that the upward bias on implied volatility does not represent a long
term return premium, rather it is required to mitigate the large losses associated with tail
events when trading volatility in options markets.
Text
EJOR_Pure
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 28 March 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 31 March 2017
Published date: October 2017
Keywords:
Finance, Volatility Spread, Variance Premium, Tail Risk, Growth Optimal Portfolios
Organisations:
Banking & Finance
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 407355
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/407355
ISSN: 0377-2217
PURE UUID: f2fb3bad-7b4b-493e-a40a-143a05ed3c47
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Date deposited: 04 Apr 2017 01:05
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:12
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Contributors
Author:
Richard J. Mcgee
Author:
Francis Mcgroarty
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