IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/msh/ebswps/2002-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pricing Currency Options in Tranquil Markets: Modelling Volatility Frowns

Author

Listed:
  • G.C. Lim
  • G.M. Martin
  • V.L. Martin

Abstract

Volatility smiles arise in currency option markets when empirical exchange rate returns distributions exhibit leptokurtosis. This feature of empirical distributions is symptomatic of turbulent periods when exchange rate movements are in excess of movements based on the assumption of normality. In contrast, during periods of tranquility, movements in exchange rates are relatively small, resulting in unconditional empirical returns distributions with thinner tails than the normal distribution. Pricing currency options during tranquil periods on the assumption of normal returns yields implied volatility frowns, with over-pricing at both deep-in and deep-out-of-the-money contracts and under-pricing for at-the-money contracts. This paper shows how a parametric class of thin-tailed distributions based on the generalized Student t family of distributions can price currency options during periods of tranquility.

Suggested Citation

  • G.C. Lim & G.M. Martin & V.L. Martin, 2002. "Pricing Currency Options in Tranquil Markets: Modelling Volatility Frowns," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 4/02, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    • Handle: RePEc:msh:ebswps:2002-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/ebs/pubs/wpapers/2002/wp4-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yacine Aït-Sahalia & Andrew W. Lo, "undated". "Nonparametric Estimation of State-Price Densities Implicit in Financial Asset Prices," CRSP working papers 332, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    2. C. J. Corrado & Tie Su, 1997. "Implied volatility skews and stock return skewness and kurtosis implied by stock option prices," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 73-85, March.
    3. 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.
    4. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    5. Clement, E. & Gourieroux, C. & Monfort, A., 2000. "Econometric specification of the risk neutral valuation model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 117-143.
    6. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine, 1996. "Nonparametric Pricing of Interest Rate Derivative Securities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(3), pages 527-560, May.
    7. Yacine Aït-Sahalia & Andrew W. Lo, 1998. "Nonparametric Estimation of State-Price Densities Implicit in Financial Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(2), pages 499-547, April.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    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. G. C. Lim & G. M. Martin & V. L. Martin, 2005. "Parametric pricing of higher order moments in S&P500 options," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 377-404, March.
    2. Lim, G.C. & Martin, G.M. & Martin, V.L., 2006. "Pricing currency options in the presence of time-varying volatility and non-normalities," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 291-314, July.
    3. Christoffersen, Peter & Heston, Steve & Jacobs, Kris, 2006. "Option valuation with conditional skewness," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 253-284.
    4. 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.
    5. Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris & Ornthanalai, Chayawat & Wang, Yintian, 2008. "Option valuation with long-run and short-run volatility components," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 272-297, December.
    6. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine & Duarte, Jefferson, 2003. "Nonparametric option pricing under shape restrictions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 9-47.
    7. Fornari, Fabio & Mele, Antonio, 2001. "Recovering the probability density function of asset prices using garch as diffusion approximations," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 83-110, March.
    8. Peng Cheng & Olivier Scaillet, 2002. "Linear-Quadratic Jump-Diffusion Modeling with Application to Stochastic Volatility," FAME Research Paper Series rp67, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    9. Jingzhi Huang & Liuren Wu, 2004. "Specification Analysis of Option Pricing Models Based on Time- Changed Levy Processes," Finance 0401002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. George J. Jiang, 2002. "Testing Option Pricing Models with Stochastic Volatility, Random Jumps and Stochastic Interest Rates," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 3(3‐4), pages 233-272, September.
    11. Li, Gang & Zhang, Chu, 2013. "Diagnosing affine models of options pricing: Evidence from VIX," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 199-219.
    12. Alessandro Beber, 2001. "Determinants of the implied volatility function on the Italian Stock Market," LEM Papers Series 2001/05, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    13. Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo & Ferreira García, María Eva & Gago, Mónica & León, Angel, 2002. "An empirical comparison of the performance of alternative option pricing models," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    14. Jiang, George J. & Tian, Yisong S., 2010. "Misreaction or misspecification? A re-examination of volatility anomalies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2358-2369, October.
    15. Eva Ferreira & Mónica Gago & Angel León & Gonzalo Rubio, 2005. "An empirical comparison of the performance of alternative option pricing models," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 29(3), pages 483-523, September.
    16. Doran, James S. & Ronn, Ehud I., 2008. "Computing the market price of volatility risk in the energy commodity markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2541-2552, December.
    17. Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris, 2004. "The importance of the loss function in option valuation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 291-318, May.
    18. René Garcia & Eric Ghysels & Eric Renault, 2004. "The Econometrics of Option Pricing," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-04, CIRANO.
    19. Carvalho, Augusto & Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2018. "State-controlled companies and political risk: Evidence from the 2014 Brazilian election," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 66-78.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Option pricing; volatility frowns; thin-tails; generalized Student t.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:msh:ebswps:2002-4. 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: Professor Xibin Zhang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dxmonau.html .

    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.