IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v12y2009i3p391-417.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Option strategies: Good deals and margin calls

Author

Listed:
  • Santa-Clara, Pedro
  • Saretto, Alessio

Abstract

We provide evidence that trading frictions have an economically important impact on the execution and the profitability of option strategies that involve writing out-of-the-money put options. Margin requirements, in particular, limit the notional amount of capital that can be invested in the strategies and force investors to close down positions and realize losses. The economic effect of frictions is stronger when the investor seeks to write options more aggressively. Although margins are effective in reducing counterparty default risk, they also impose a friction that limits investors from supplying liquidity to the option market.

Suggested Citation

  • Santa-Clara, Pedro & Saretto, Alessio, 2009. "Option strategies: Good deals and margin calls," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 391-417, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:12:y:2009:i:3:p:391-417
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386-4181(09)00012-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1990. "Margin Requirements, Volatility, and the Transitory Components of Stock Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 736-762, September.
    2. Pan, Jun, 2002. "The jump-risk premia implicit in options: evidence from an integrated time-series study," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 3-50, January.
    3. Leland, Hayne E, 1985. "Option Pricing and Replication with Transactions Costs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(5), pages 1283-1301, December.
    4. George, Thomas J. & Longstaff, Francis A., 1993. "Bid-Ask Spreads and Trading Activity in the S&P 100 Index Options Market," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 381-397, September.
    5. Bakshi, Gurdip & Cao, Charles & Chen, Zhiwu, 1997. "Empirical Performance of Alternative Option Pricing Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 2003-2049, December.
    6. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia, 2003. "Delta-Hedged Gains and the Negative Market Volatility Risk Premium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 527-566.
    7. Xin Huang & George Tauchen, 2005. "The Relative Contribution of Jumps to Total Price Variance," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 456-499.
    8. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:5:p:1289-1311 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:ags:afjare:141665 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Jun Liu, 2004. "Losing Money on Arbitrage: Optimal Dynamic Portfolio Choice in Markets with Arbitrage Opportunities," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 611-641.
    11. Ofek, Eli & Richardson, Matthew & Whitelaw, Robert F., 2004. "Limited arbitrage and short sales restrictions: evidence from the options markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 305-342, November.
    12. Lasse Heje Pedersen & Mark Mitchell & Todd Pulvino, 2007. "Slow Moving Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 215-220, May.
    13. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten & Rubinstein, Mark, 1996. "Recovering Probability Distributions from Option Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1611-1632, December.
    14. Jones, Christopher S., 2003. "The dynamics of stochastic volatility: evidence from underlying and options markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 181-224.
    15. Rosenberg, Joshua V. & Engle, Robert F., 2002. "Empirical pricing kernels," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 341-372, June.
    16. Bates, David S, 1996. "Jumps and Stochastic Volatility: Exchange Rate Processes Implicit in Deutsche Mark Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(1), pages 69-107.
    17. Chernov, Mikhail & Ronald Gallant, A. & Ghysels, Eric & Tauchen, George, 2003. "Alternative models for stock price dynamics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 225-257.
    18. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:711-753 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Joshua D. Coval & Tyler Shumway, 2001. "Expected Option Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 983-1009, June.
    20. Merton, Robert C & Scholes, Myron S & Gladstein, Mathew L, 1982. "The Returns and Risks of Alternative Put-Option Portfolio Investment Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 1-55, January.
    21. George M. Constantinides & Thaleia Zariphopoulou, 2001. "Bounds on Derivative Prices in an Intertemporal Setting with Proportional Transaction Costs and Multiple Securities," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), pages 331-346, July.
    22. Jonathan Ingersoll & Ivo Welch, 2007. "Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measures," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1503-1546, 2007 17.
    23. Jones, Charles M. & Lamont, Owen A., 2002. "Short-sale constraints and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 207-239.
    24. Isabelle Huault & V. Perret & S. Charreire-Petit, 2007. "Management," Post-Print halshs-00337676, HAL.
    25. 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.
    26. Santa-Clara, Pedro & Yan, Shu, 2004. "Jump and Volatility Risk and Risk Premia: A New Model and Lessons from S&P 500 Options," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt5dv8v999, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    27. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1367-1404 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Gikas A. Hardouvelis & Stavros Peristiani, 1992. "Margin Requirements, Speculative Trading, and Stock Price Fluctuations: The Case of Japan," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1333-1370.
    29. Bernard Bensaid & Jean‐Philippe Lesne & Henri Pagès & José Scheinkman, 1992. "Derivative Asset Pricing With Transaction Costs1," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(2), pages 63-86, April.
    30. Largay, James A, III & West, Richard R, 1973. "Margin Changes and Stock Price Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(2), pages 328-339, Part I, M.
    31. David C. Heath & Robert A. Jarrow, 2008. "Arbitrage, Continuous Trading, and Margin Requirements," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Derivatives Pricing Selected Works of Robert Jarrow, chapter 2, pages 33-46, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    32. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2005. "Can Standard Preferences Explain the Prices of out of the Money S&P 500 Put Options," NBER Working Papers 11861, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. David S. Bates, 2001. "The Market for Crash Risk," NBER Working Papers 8557, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. Owen A. Lamont & Jeremy C. Stein, 2004. "Aggregate Short Interest and Market Valuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 29-32, May.
    35. Bing Han, 2008. "Investor Sentiment and Option Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 387-414, January.
    36. Hsieh, David A & Miller, Merton H, 1990. "Margin Regulation and Stock Market Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 3-29, March.
    37. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten, 2000. "Recovering Risk Aversion from Option Prices and Realized Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 433-451.
    38. T. Clifton Green & Stephen Figlewski, 1999. "Market Risk and Model Risk for a Financial Institution Writing Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1465-1499, August.
    39. Mark Broadie & Mikhail Chernov & Michael Johannes, 2009. "Understanding Index Option Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4493-4529, November.
    40. Merton, Robert C & Scholes, Myron S & Gladstein, Mathew L, 1978. "The Returns and Risk of Alternative Call Option Portfolio Investment Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(2), pages 183-242, April.
    41. William Goetzmann & Jonathan Ingersoll & Matthew I. Spiegel & Ivo Welch, 2002. "Sharpening Sharpe Ratios," NBER Working Papers 9116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    42. Joost Driessen & Pascal Maenhout, 2007. "An Empirical Portfolio Perspective on Option Pricing Anomalies," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 11(4), pages 561-603.
    43. Liu, Jun & Pan, Jun, 2003. "Dynamic derivative strategies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 401-430, September.
    44. Torben G. Andersen & Luca Benzoni, 2009. "Stochastic volatility," Working Paper Series WP-09-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    45. Buraschi, Andrea & Jackwerth, Jens, 2001. "The Price of a Smile: Hedging and Spanning in Option Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 495-527.
    46. Joost Driessen & Pascal J. Maenhout & Grigory Vilkov, 2009. "The Price of Correlation Risk: Evidence from Equity Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1377-1406, June.
    47. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    48. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    49. Bates, David S., 2003. "Empirical option pricing: a retrospection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 387-404.
    50. Bjørn Eraker & Michael Johannes & Nicholas Polson, 2003. "The Impact of Jumps in Volatility and Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1269-1300, June.
    51. Chernov, Mikhail & Ghysels, Eric, 2000. "A study towards a unified approach to the joint estimation of objective and risk neutral measures for the purpose of options valuation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 407-458, June.
    52. Duffie, Darrell & Garleanu, Nicolae & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2002. "Securities lending, shorting, and pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 307-339.
    53. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    54. Danielsen, Bartley R. & Sorescu, Sorin M., 2001. "Why Do Option Introductions Depress Stock Prices? A Study of Diminishing Short Sale Constraints," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 451-484, December.
    55. Andrea Buraschi & Alexei Jiltsov, 2006. "Model Uncertainty and Option Markets with Heterogeneous Beliefs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2841-2897, December.
    56. Gikas A. Hardouvelis & Panayiotis Theodossiou, 2002. "The Asymmetric Relation Between Initial Margin Requirements and Stock Market Volatility Across Bull and Bear Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1525-1560.
    57. Nicolae Gârleanu & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2007. "Liquidity and Risk Management," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 193-197, May.
    58. Robert Battalio & Paul Schultz, 2006. "Options and the Bubble," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2071-2102, October.
    59. Black, Fischer, 1976. "The pricing of commodity contracts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1-2), pages 167-179.
    60. Christensen, B. J. & Prabhala, N. R., 1998. "The relation between implied and realized volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 125-150, November.
    61. Bates, David S., 2000. "Post-'87 crash fears in the S&P 500 futures option market," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 181-238.
    62. Mayhew, Stewart & Sarin, Atulya & Shastri, Kuldeep, 1995. "The Allocation of Informed Trading across Related Markets: An Analysis of the Impact of Changes in Equity-Option Margin Requirements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1635-1653, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Benzoni, Luca & Collin-Dufresne, Pierre & Goldstein, Robert S., 2011. "Explaining asset pricing puzzles associated with the 1987 market crash," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 552-573, September.
    2. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    3. Christoffersen, Peter & Heston, Steven & Jacobs, Kris, 2010. "Option Anomalies and the Pricing Kernel," Working Papers 11-17, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    4. René Garcia & Eric Ghysels & Eric Renault, 2004. "The Econometrics of Option Pricing," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-04, CIRANO.
    5. Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris & Chang, Bo Young, 2013. "Forecasting with Option-Implied Information," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 581-656, Elsevier.
    6. Byun, Suk Joon & Jeon, Byoung Hyun & Min, Byungsun & Yoon, Sun-Joong, 2015. "The role of the variance premium in Jump-GARCH option pricing models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 38-56.
    7. Du Du & Dan Luo, 2019. "The Pricing of Jump Propagation: Evidence from Spot and Options Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2360-2387, May.
    8. Chin‐Ho Chen, 2021. "Investor sentiment, misreaction, and the skewness‐return relationship," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(9), pages 1427-1455, September.
    9. Shackleton, Mark B. & Taylor, Stephen J. & Yu, Peng, 2010. "A multi-horizon comparison of density forecasts for the S&P 500 using index returns and option prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2678-2693, November.
    10. Papantonis, Ioannis, 2016. "Volatility risk premium implications of GARCH option pricing models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 104-115.
    11. Bakshi, Gurdip & Madan, Dilip & Panayotov, George, 2010. "Returns of claims on the upside and the viability of U-shaped pricing kernels," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 130-154, July.
    12. Neumann, Maximilian & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2016. "Jump and variance risk premia in the S&P 500," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 72-83.
    13. Hui Guo & Christopher J. Neely & Jason Higbee, 2008. "Foreign Exchange Volatility Is Priced in Equities," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 769-790, December.
    14. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2004. "Variance Risk Premia," Finance 0409015, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Bollerslev, Tim & Gibson, Michael & Zhou, Hao, 2011. "Dynamic estimation of volatility risk premia and investor risk aversion from option-implied and realized volatilities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 235-245, January.
    16. Alfredo Ibáñez, 2008. "The cross-section of average delta-hedge option returns under stochastic volatility," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 205-244, October.
    17. Liu, Jun & Pan, Jun, 2003. "Dynamic derivative strategies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 401-430, September.
    18. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    19. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2005. "Can Standard Preferences Explain the Prices of out of the Money S&P 500 Put Options," NBER Working Papers 11861, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Chen, Chin-Ho, 2019. "Downside jump risk and the levels of futures-cash basis," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).

    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:12:y:2009:i:3:p:391-417. 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.