IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/pennin/97-51.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stock Market Volatility: Ten Years After the Crash

Author

Listed:
  • G. William Schwert

Abstract

Stock volatility has been unusually low since the 1987 stock market crash. The large increase in stock prices since 1987 means that many days during 1996 and 1997 experienced near record changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, even though the volatility of stock returns has not been high by historical standards. I compare volatility of returns to U.S. stock indexes at monthly, daily, and intraday intervals, and I also show the volatility of returns to stock indexes implied by traded options contracts. Finally, I compare the volatility of U.S. stock market returns with the volatility of returns to stock markets in the United Kingdom Australia, and Canada. All of the evidence leads to the conclusion that volatility has been very low in the decade since the 1987 crash. The mini-crash of October 27 to reevaluate the current system of circuit breakers so that they are triggered less easily. Part of the problem is caused by trigger points that are expressed as absolute changes in market indexes.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • G. William Schwert, 1997. "Stock Market Volatility: Ten Years After the Crash," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 97-51, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
  • Handle: RePEc:wop:pennin:97-51
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bates, David S, 1991. "The Crash of '87: Was It Expected? The Evidence from Options Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(3), pages 1009-1044, July.
    2. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "The Stock Market and Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(1), pages 115-131.
    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. Karen K. Lewis, 2011. "Global Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 435-466, December.
    2. Richter, Andries & Dakos, Vasilis, 2015. "Profit fluctuations signal eroding resilience of natural resources," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 12-21.
    3. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2014. "Static Hedging of Standard Options," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 3-46.
    4. Jung‐Soon Shin & Minki Kim & Dongjun Oh & Tong Suk Kim, 2019. "Do hedge funds time market tail risk? Evidence from option‐implied tail risk," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 205-237, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Jurczenko, Emmanuel & Maillet, Bertrand & Negrea, Bogdan, 2002. "Revisited multi-moment approximate option pricing models: a general comparison (Part 1)," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24950, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Henry, Peter Blair, 2000. "Do stock market liberalizations cause investment booms?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 301-334.
    8. Atanda Mustapha Saidi, 2017. "Working Paper 273 - Stock (Mis)pricing and investment dynamics in Africa," Working Paper Series 2390, African Development Bank.
    9. Diego Amaya & Jean-François Bégin & Geneviève Gauthier, 2022. "The Informational Content of High-Frequency Option Prices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(3), pages 2166-2201, March.
    10. Malz, Allan M., 1996. "Using option prices to estimate realignment probabilities in the European Monetary System: the case of sterling-mark," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 717-748, October.
    11. James Ming Chen, 2017. "Systematic Risk in the Macrocosm," Quantitative Perspectives on Behavioral Economics and Finance, in: Econophysics and Capital Asset Pricing, chapter 0, pages 239-274, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Krainer, Robert E., 2013. "Towards a program for financial stability," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 207-218.
    13. Ozlem Goktas & Aycan Hepsag, 2011. "Do stock returns lead real economic activity? Evidence from seasonal cointegration analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2117-2127.
    14. Shaw, Charles, 2020. "Regimes, Non-Linearities, and Price Discontinuities in Indian Energy Stocks," MPRA Paper 104798, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Green, Richard K., 2002. "Stock prices and house prices in California: new evidence of a wealth effect?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 775-783, November.
    16. John Conlon, 2005. "Should Central Banks Burst Bubbles?," Game Theory and Information 0508007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Alexander David & Pietro Veronesi, 1998. "Option Prices with Uncertain Fundamentals: Theory and Evidence on the Dynamics of Implied Volatilities," CRSP working papers 485, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    18. F Alexandre & P Bacao, 2006. "Investment and Non-fundamental Movements in Asset Prices: is there a role for monetary policy?," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 11(1), pages 65-95, March.
    19. Long Chen & Lu Zhang, 2009. "The stock market and aggregate employment," NBER Working Papers 15219, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Qureshi, Fiza & Khan, Habib Hussain & Rehman, Ijaz Ur & Ghafoor, Abdul & Qureshi, Saba, 2019. "Mutual fund flows and investors’ expectations in BRICS economies: Implications for international diversification," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 130-150.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:wop:pennin:97-51. 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fiupaus.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.