Recent developments of option pricing models

In the current literature, the analytical tractability of discrete time option pricing models is guaranteed only for rather specific types of models and pricing kernels. We propose a very general and fully analytical option pricing framework, encompassing a wide class of discrete time models featuring multiple-component structure in both volatility and leverage, and a flexible pricing kernel with multiple risk premia. Although the proposed framework is general enough to include either GARCH-type volatility, Realized Volatility or a combination of the two, in this paper we focus on realized volatility option pricing models by extending the Heterogeneous Autoregressive Gamma (HARG) model of Corsi et al. (2012) to incorporate heterogeneous leverage structures with multiple components, while preserving closed-form solutions for option prices. Applying our analytically tractable asymmetric HARG model to a large sample of S&P 500 index options, we demonstrate its superior ability to price out-of-the-money options compared to existing benchmarks.

Volatility clustering, long-range dependence, and non-Gaussian scaling are stylized facts of financial assets dynamics. They are ignored in the Black & Scholes framework, but have a relevant impact on the pricing of options written on financial assets. Using a recent model for market dynamics which adequately captures the above stylized facts, we derive closed form equations for option pricing, obtaining the Black & Scholes as a special case. By applying our pricing equations to a major equity index option dataset, we show that inclusion of stylized features in financial modeling moves derivative prices about 30% closer to the market values without the need of calibrating models parameters on available derivative prices.

We analyze the high-frequency dynamics of S&P 500 equity-index option prices by constructing an assortment of implied volatility measures. This allows us to infer the underlying fine structure behind the innovations in the latent state variables driving the evolution of the volatility surface. In particular, we focus attention on implied volatilities covering a wide range of moneyness (strike/underlying stock price), which load differentially on the different latent state variables. We conduct a similar analysis for high-frequency observations on the VIX volatility index as well as on futures written on it. We find that the innovations over small time scales in the risk-neutral intensity of the negative jumps in the S&P 500 index, which is the dominant component of the short-maturity out-of-the-money put implied volatility dynamics, are best described via non-Gaussian shocks, i.e., jumps. On the other hand, the innovations over small time scales of the diffusive volatility, which is the dominant component in the short-maturity at-the-money option implied volatility dynamics, are best modeled as Gaussian with occasional jumps.

The paper proposes a general asymmetric multifactor Wishart stochastic volatility (AMWSV) diffusion process which accommodates leverage, feedback effects and multifactor for the covariance process. The paper gives the closed-form solution for the conditional and unconditional Laplace transform of the AMWSV models. The paper also suggests estimating the AMWSV model by the generalized method of moments using information not only of stock prices but also of realized volatilities and co-volatilities. The empirical results for the bivariate data of the NASDAQ 100 and S&P 500 indices show that the general AMWSV model is preferred among several nested models.

We introduce a tractable class of multi-factor price processes with regime-switching stochastic volatility and jumps, which flexibly adapt to changing market conditions and permit fast option pricing. A small set of structural parameters, whose dimension is invariant to the number of factors, fully specifies the joint dynamics of the underlying asset and options implied volatility surface. We develop a novel particle filter for efficiently extracting the latent state from joint S&P 500 returns and options data. The model outperforms standard benchmarks in- and out-of-sample, and remains robust even in the wake of seemingly large discontinuities such as the recent financial crisis.

Assume that St is a stock price process and Bt is a bond price process with a constant continuously compounded risk-free interest rate, where both are defined on an appropriate probability space P. Let yt=log(St/St−1). yt can be generally decomposed into a conditional mean plus a noise with volatility components, but the discounted St is not a martingale under P. Under a general framework, we obtain a risk-neutralized measure Q under which the discounted St is a martingale in this paper. Using this measure, we show how to derive the risk neutralized price for the derivatives. Special examples, such as NGARCH, EGARCH and GJR pricing models, are given. Simulation study reveals that these pricing models can capture the “volatility skew” of implied volatilities in the European option. A small application highlights the importance of our model-based pricing procedure.