IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14544.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mispricing of S&P 500 Index Options

Author

Listed:
  • George M. Constantinides
  • Jens Carsten Jackwerth
  • Stylianos Perrakis

Abstract

Widespread violations of stochastic dominance by one-month S&P 500 index call options over 1986-2006 imply that a trader can improve expected utility by engaging in a zero-net-cost trade net of transaction costs and bid-ask spread. Although pre-crash option prices conform to the Black-Scholes-Merton model reasonably well, they are incorrectly priced if the distribution of the index return is estimated from time-series data. Substantial violations by post-crash OTM calls contradict the notion that the problem primarily lies with the left-hand tail of the index return distribution and that the smile is too steep. The decrease in violations over the post-crash period 1988-1995 is followed by a substantial increase over 1997-2006 which may be due to the lower quality of the data but, in any case, does not provide evidence that the options market is becoming more rational over time.

Suggested Citation

  • George M. Constantinides & Jens Carsten Jackwerth & Stylianos Perrakis, 2008. "Mispricing of S&P 500 Index Options," NBER Working Papers 14544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14544
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14544.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garcia, Rene & Luger, Richard & Renault, Eric, 2003. "Empirical assessment of an intertemporal option pricing model with latent variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 49-83.
    2. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine & Lo, Andrew W., 2000. "Nonparametric risk management and implied risk aversion," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 9-51.
    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. Perrakis, Stylianos, 1986. "Option Bounds in Discrete Time: Extensions and the Pricing of the American Put," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 119-141, January.
    5. (*), Thaleia Zariphopoulou & George M. Constantinides, 1999. "Bounds on prices of contingent claims in an intertemporal economy with proportional transaction costs and general preferences," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 345-369.
    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. 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.
    8. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2003. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    9. Nicolas P. B. Bollen & Robert E. Whaley, 2004. "Does Net Buying Pressure Affect the Shape of Implied Volatility Functions?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(2), pages 711-753, April.
    10. Jun Liu, 2005. "An Equilibrium Model of Rare-Event Premia and Its Implication for Option Smirks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 131-164.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Levy, Haim, 1985. "Upper and Lower Bounds of Put and Call Option Value: Stochastic Dominance Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1197-1217, September.
    14. Perrakis, Stylianos & Ryan, Peter J, 1984. "Option Pricing Bounds in Discrete Time," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(2), pages 519-525, June.
    15. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2003. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 2.
    16. Robert R. Bliss & Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, 2004. "Option-Implied Risk Aversion Estimates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 407-446, February.
    17. 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.
    18. Peter Ryan, 2000. "Tighter Option Bounds from Multiple Exercise Prices," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 155-188, May.
    19. Constantinides, George M. & Perrakis, Stylianos, 2002. "Stochastic dominance bounds on derivatives prices in a multiperiod economy with proportional transaction costs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(7-8), pages 1323-1352, July.
    20. George M. Constantinides & Michal Czerwonko & Jens Carsten Jackwerth & Stylianos Perrakis, 2011. "Are Options on Index Futures Profitable for Risk‐Averse Investors? Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1407-1437, August.
    21. George M. Constantinides, 1979. "Multiperiod Consumption and Investment Behavior with Convex Transactions Costs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(11), pages 1127-1137, November.
    22. Ryan, Peter J., 2003. "Progressive option bounds from the sequence of concurrently expiring options," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(1), pages 193-223, November.
    23. 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.
    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. Constantinides, George M. & Jackwerth, Jens Carsten & Perrakis, Stylianos, 2005. "Option pricing: Real and risk-neutral distributions," CoFE Discussion Papers 05/06, University of Konstanz, Center of Finance and Econometrics (CoFE).
    2. Stylianos Perrakis, 2022. "From innovation to obfuscation: continuous time finance fifty years later," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(3), pages 369-401, September.
    3. Horatio Cuesdeanu & Jens Carsten Jackwerth, 2018. "The pricing kernel puzzle: survey and outlook," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 289-329, August.
    4. George M. Constantinides & Michal Czerwonko & Stylianos Perrakis, 2020. "Mispriced index option portfolios," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 297-330, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Hamed Ghanbari & Michael Oancea & Stylianos Perrakis, 2021. "Shedding light on a dark matter: Jump diffusion and option‐implied investor preferences," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 27(2), pages 244-286, March.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Constantinides, George M. & Perrakis, Stylianos, 2002. "Stochastic dominance bounds on derivatives prices in a multiperiod economy with proportional transaction costs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(7-8), pages 1323-1352, July.
    10. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring Heuristic in Option Pricing," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 207677, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    11. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2014. "Anchoring Heuristic in Option Prices," MPRA Paper 66018, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jul 2015.
    12. Michal Czerwonko & Stylianos Perrakis, 2016. "Portfolio Selection with Transaction Costs and Jump-Diffusion Asset Dynamics II: Economic Implications," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(04), pages 1-28, December.
    13. Thierry Post & Iňaki Rodríguez Longarela, 2021. "Risk Arbitrage Opportunities for Stock Index Options," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 100-113, January.
    14. 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.
    15. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic in Option Pricing," MPRA Paper 68595, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Barone-Adesi, Giovanni & Fusari, Nicola & Mira, Antonietta & Sala, Carlo, 2020. "Option market trading activity and the estimation of the pricing kernel: A Bayesian approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 430-449.
    17. Rompolis, Leonidas S., 2010. "Retrieving risk neutral densities from European option prices based on the principle of maximum entropy," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 918-937, December.
    18. 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.
    19. Beber, Alessandro & Brandt, Michael W., 2006. "The effect of macroeconomic news on beliefs and preferences: Evidence from the options market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1997-2039, November.
    20. Vladislav Kargin, 2003. "Consistent Estimation of Pricing Kernels from Noisy Price Data," Papers math/0310223, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • 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:nbr:nberwo:14544. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.