IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v52y2021ics1386418120300252.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economics of the financial market for volatility trading

Author

Listed:
  • Ruan, Xinfeng
  • Zhang, Jin E.

Abstract

We examine the economics of the financial market for volatility trading based on an equilibrium model with three kinds of traders: dealers, asset managers, and leveraged funds. Our model reveals that the negative price of volatility is due to the high short positions of dealers, low short positions of leveraged funds, and high long positions of asset managers. It also explains well the negative variance risk premium and the negative returns of volatility derivatives. Our empirical analysis based on VIX futures position data with weekly frequency from 2006 to 2016, furthermore, supports the model's implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruan, Xinfeng & Zhang, Jin E., 2021. "The economics of the financial market for volatility trading," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:52:y:2021:i:c:s1386418120300252
    DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2020.100556
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386418120300252
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.finmar.2020.100556?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bollerslev, Tim & Todorov, Viktor & Xu, Lai, 2015. "Tail risk premia and return predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 113-134.
    2. Andrea Buraschi & Fabio Trojani & Andrea Vedolin, 2014. "When Uncertainty Blows in the Orchard: Comovement and Equilibrium Volatility Risk Premia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(1), pages 101-137, February.
    3. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    4. Jianqing Fan & Michael B. Imerman & Wei Dai, 2016. "What Does the Volatility Risk Premium Say About Liquidity Provision and Demand for Hedging Tail Risk?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 519-535, October.
    5. Bollerslev, Tim & Marrone, James & Xu, Lai & Zhou, Hao, 2014. "Stock Return Predictability and Variance Risk Premia: Statistical Inference and International Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 633-661, June.
    6. Tim Bollerslev & Viktor Todorov, 2011. "Tails, Fears, and Risk Premia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(6), pages 2165-2211, December.
    7. Nicolae Garleanu & Lasse Heje Pedersen & Allen M. Poteshman, 2009. "Demand-Based Option Pricing," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 4259-4299, October.
    8. Gurdip Bakshi & Dilip Madan, 2006. "A Theory of Volatility Spreads," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(12), pages 1945-1956, December.
    9. Heston, Steven L, 1993. "A Closed-Form Solution for Options with Stochastic Volatility with Applications to Bond and Currency Options," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 327-343.
    10. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia, 2003. "Delta-Hedged Gains and the Negative Market Volatility Risk Premium," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 527-566.
    11. Ing-Haw Cheng, 2019. "The VIX Premium," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(1), pages 180-227.
    12. Bardgett, Chris & Gourier, Elise & Leippold, Markus, 2019. "Inferring volatility dynamics and risk premia from the S&P 500 and VIX markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 593-618.
    13. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "How does the market variance risk premium vary over time? Evidence from S&P 500 variance swap investment returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-75.
    14. Itamar Drechsler & Amir Yaron, 2011. "What's Vol Got to Do with It," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(1), pages 1-45.
    15. Basak, Suleyman, 2005. "Asset pricing with heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 2849-2881, November.
    16. González-Urteaga, Ana & Rubio, Gonzalo, 2016. "The cross-sectional variation of volatility risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 353-370.
    17. Viktor Todorov, 2010. "Variance Risk-Premium Dynamics: The Role of Jumps," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 345-383, January.
    18. Barras, Laurent & Malkhozov, Aytek, 2016. "Does variance risk have two prices? Evidence from the equity and option markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 79-92.
    19. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    20. Ravi Bansal & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Risks for the Long Run: A Potential Resolution of Asset Pricing Puzzles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1481-1509, August.
    21. Jianjian Jin, 2015. "Jump-Diffusion Long-Run Risks Models, Variance Risk Premium, and Volatility Dynamics," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1223-1279.
    22. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    23. Nicolas P.B. Bollen & Michael J. O'Neill & Robert E. Whaley, 2017. "Tail Wags Dog: Intraday Price Discovery in VIX Markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(5), pages 431-451, May.
    24. Bakshi, Gurdip & Madan, Dilip & Panayotov, George, 2015. "Heterogeneity in Beliefs and Volatility Tail Behavior," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(6), pages 1389-1414, December.
    25. Eraker, Bjørn & Wu, Yue, 2017. "Explaining the negative returns to volatility claims: An equilibrium approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 72-98.
    26. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2009. "Variance Risk Premiums," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1311-1341, March.
    27. Itamar Drechsler, 2013. "Uncertainty, Time-Varying Fear, and Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(5), pages 1843-1889, October.
    28. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    29. Ai[diaeresis]t-Sahalia, Yacine & Kimmel, Robert, 2007. "Maximum likelihood estimation of stochastic volatility models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 413-452, February.
    30. Hoyong Choi & Philippe Mueller & Andrea Vedolin, 2017. "Bond Variance Risk Premiums," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(3), pages 987-1022.
    31. Mark Broadie & Mikhail Chernov & Michael Johannes, 2007. "Model Specification and Risk Premia: Evidence from Futures Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1453-1490, June.
    32. Ruan, Xinfeng & Zhang, Jin E., 2018. "Equilibrium variance risk premium in a cost-free production economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 42-60.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wei Guo & Xinfeng Ruan & Sebastian A. Gehricke & Jin E. Zhang, 2023. "Term spreads of implied volatility smirk and variance risk premium," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(7), pages 829-857, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ruan, Xinfeng & Zhang, Jin E., 2018. "Equilibrium variance risk premium in a cost-free production economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 42-60.
    2. Ruan, Xinfeng & Zhang, Jin E., 2021. "Time-varying uncertainty and variance risk premium," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    3. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "How does the market variance risk premium vary over time? Evidence from S&P 500 variance swap investment returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-75.
    4. Hollstein, Fabian & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2020. "Variance risk: A bird’s eye view," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 215(2), pages 517-535.
    5. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "How does the market variance risk premium vary over time? Evidence from S&P 500 variance swap investment returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-75.
    6. Bollerslev, Tim & Todorov, Viktor & Xu, Lai, 2015. "Tail risk premia and return predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 113-134.
    7. Yin, Libo & Feng, Jiabao & Liu, Li & Wang, Yudong, 2019. "It's not that important: The negligible effect of oil market uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 62-84.
    8. Shaliastovich, Ivan, 2015. "Learning, confidence, and option prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 18-42.
    9. Yabei Zhu & Xingguo Luo & Qi Xu, 2023. "Industry variance risk premium, cross‐industry correlation, and expected returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 3-32, January.
    10. Agarwal, Vikas & Arisoy, Y. Eser & Naik, Narayan Y., 2017. "Volatility of aggregate volatility and hedge fund returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 491-510.
    11. Bams, Dennis & Blanchard, Gildas & Honarvar, Iman & Lehnert, Thorsten, 2017. "Does oil and gold price uncertainty matter for the stock market?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 270-285.
    12. Hattori, Masazumi & Shim, Ilhyock & Sugihara, Yoshihiko, 2021. "Cross-stock market spillovers through variance risk premiums and equity flows," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    13. Peter Van Tassel & Erik Vogt, 2016. "Global variance term premia and intermediary risk appetite," Staff Reports 789, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    14. Rombouts, Jeroen V.K. & Stentoft, Lars & Violante, Francesco, 2020. "Dynamics of variance risk premia: A new model for disentangling the price of risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 217(2), pages 312-334.
    15. Sonnan Chen & Yuchi Gu, 2021. "Joint estimation of volatility risk and tail risk premia with time-varying macro-state-dependent property," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1357-1397, May.
    16. Pyun, Sungjune, 2019. "Variance risk in aggregate stock returns and time-varying return predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 150-174.
    17. Ruan, Xinfeng & Zhang, Jin E., 2019. "Moment spreads in the energy market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 598-609.
    18. Juan M. Londono, 2011. "The variance risk premium around the world," International Finance Discussion Papers 1035, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Filipović, Damir & Gourier, Elise & Mancini, Loriano, 2016. "Quadratic variance swap models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 44-68.
    20. Aït-Sahalia, Yacine & Karaman, Mustafa & Mancini, Loriano, 2020. "The term structure of equity and variance risk premia," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(2), pages 204-230.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Volatility trading; Variance risk premium; VIX futures; Equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:52:y:2021:i:c:s1386418120300252. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/finmar .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.