We document a surprising pattern in market prices of S&P 500 index options. When implied volatilities are graphed against a standard measure of moneyness, the implied volatility smirk does not flatten out as maturity increases up to the observable horizon of two years. This behavior contrasts sharply with the implications of many pricing models and with the asymptotic behavior implied by the central limit theorem (CLT). We develop a parsimonious model which deliberately violates the CLT assumptions and thus captures the observed behavior of the volatility smirk over the maturity horizon. Calibration exercises demonstrate its superior performance against several widely used alternatives.
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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Finance with number
0207012.
Length: 42 pages Date of creation: 30 Aug 2002 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0207012
Note: Type of Document - pdf; prepared on MikTex; to print on postscript; pages: 42 ; figures: included. produced via dvipdfm Contact details of provider: Web page: http://129.3.20.41
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Find related papers by JEL classification: G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods
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