Index arbitrage and the pricing relationship between Australian stock index futures and their underlying shares

This paper examines the mispricing of Australian stock index futures. Exogenous and endogenous price volatility is confirmed to have a positive impact on the mispricing spread, after filtering out predictable time series components. More accurate pricing associated with surprise trading volume in the underlying stocks is consistent with arbitrageurs acting to narrow price disparities relative to the futures market. Ex‐ante interest rate volatility is the primary source of risk faced by arbitrageurs and fluctuations in the transaction cost of opening index arbitrage positions influence the extent to which they drive prices towards theoretical fair values.     

Noise, equity prices, and hedging: A new approach

The existence of noise trading in equity markets has possible economic implications for arbitrage, and asset pricing. In terms of pricing, noise trading can lead to excess volatility which has been shown to influence the value of options and futures. Furthermore, option research shows that modeling volatility leads to improved hedging performance. To this end, we derive a general hedging model for equity index futures in the presence of noise trading. Our analysis shows how the level and dynamics of noise trading should influence a hedger's behavior. Finally, we empirically test our model using the NASDAQ-100 index futures and FTSE 100 index futures over the period of January 1998 to May 2003.     

Index arbitrage with heterogeneous investors: A smooth transition error correction analysis

The traditional index arbitrage model assumes a constant threshold mispricing between the futures and cash prices for all investors. Allowing for heterogeneity in investors' transaction costs, objectives, and capital constraints, we model the intraday mispricing of DJIA futures as a smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) process with the speed of adjustment toward equilibrium varying directly with the mispricing. We show that the observed mean reversion in mispricing changes is induced by heterogeneous arbitrageurs, instead of a statistical illusion-infrequent trading of index portfolio stocks. We further use a STAR error correction model to describe the nonlinear dynamics between the DJIA futures and index. This model describes not only which market is more informationally efficient than the other, but also the legging process – the nonsimultaneous establishing of cash and futures positions.     

The International Transmission of Arbitrage Information Across Futures Markets

Abstract:   This paper examines whether deviations from a domestic spot‐futures relation, as identified through mispricing series in stock index futures, spillover international boundaries. Such spillovers suggest that information from a mispricing series in one market conveys a signal of similar mispricing in another market. In the presence of arbitrage traders and in the absence of market frictions, mispricing series should be independent across international boundaries. The study employs a VAR analysis of stock index futures mispricing across three large futures markets – Australia, the UK and the USA. Using time zone differences, tests are conducted for the daily transmission of arbitrage information. The results reveal the relationship between mispricing series is bi‐directional. Based on this finding, a trading strategy is employed to examine the economic significance of apparent profits. The results show that some profits are possible after transaction costs but that a long horizon, probably beyond the scope of most traders, is required to exploit the spillover information.     

Empirical investigation of stock index futures market efficiency: the case of the Athens Derivatives Exchange

Pricing and trading practices in the Athens Derivatives Exchange, a newly established derivatives market, result in significant futures arbitrage profit opportunities for low-cost traders. We find that a large part of the mispricing is due to transaction costs, but additional factors, such as anticipated volatility and time to maturity, also contribute. Ex ante tests reveal significant arbitrage opportunities that could have been exploited up to 30 min after they had been identified. All different tests employed indicate that the derivatives market was inefficient during its early trading history because arbitrage opportunities persisted even after other market impact costs were taken into consideration.     

Index futures arbitrage before and after the introduction of sixteenths on the NYSE

We find that market efficiency increased and the arbitrage link between index futures and the stock market strengthened after June 24, 1997, when the New York Stock Exchange reduced the minimum change for stock prices and quotes from an eighth to a sixteenth of a dollar. There has been a substantial increase in the number of arbitrage trades reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since the reduction in the minimum price increment. The average number of stocks traded and the average dollar amount underlying each arbitrage trade increases and decreases, respectively. The average index futures mispricing error (MPE) that triggers arbitrage is lower and reverts to zero more quickly.     

The hedging effect of green bonds on carbon market risk

This paper explores effective hedging instruments for carbon market risk. Examining the relationship between the carbon futures returns and the returns of four major market indices, i.e., the VIX index, the commodity index, the energy index and the green bond index, we find that the connectedness between the carbon futures returns and the green bond index returns is the highest and this connectedness is extremely pronounced during the market's volatile period. Further, we develop and evaluate hedging strategies based on three dynamic hedge ratio models (DCC-APGARCH, DCC-T-GARCH, and DCC-GJR-GARCH models) and the constant hedge ratio model (OLS model). Empirical results show that among the four market indices the green bond index is the best hedge for carbon futures and performs well even in the crisis period. The paper also provides evidence that the dynamic hedge ratio models are superior to the OLS model in the volatile period as more sophisticated models can capture the dynamic correlation and volatility spillover between the carbon futures and market index returns.     

Local volatility of volatility for the VIX market

Following a trend of sustained and accelerated growth, the VIX futures and options market has become a closely followed, active and liquid market. The standard stochastic volatility models—which focus on the modeling of instantaneous variance—are unable to fit the entire term structure of VIX futures as well as the entire VIX options surface. In contrast, we propose to model directly the VIX index, in a mean-reverting local volatility-of-volatility model, which will provide a global fit to the VIX market. We then show how to construct the local volatility-of-volatility surface by adapting the ideas in Carr (Local variance gamma. Bloomberg Quant Research, New York, 2008) and Andreasen and Huge (Risk Mag 76–79, 2011) to a mean-reverting process.     

Valuation of VIX derivatives

We conduct an extensive empirical analysis of VIX derivative valuation models before, during, and after the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Since the restrictive mean-reversion and heteroskedasticity features of existing models yield large distortions during the crisis, we propose generalisations with a time-varying central tendency, jumps, and stochastic volatility, analyse their pricing performance, and implications for term structures of VIX futures and volatility “skews.” We find that a process for the log of the observed VIX combining central tendency and stochastic volatility reliably prices VIX derivatives. We also uncover a significant risk premium that shifts the long-run volatility level.     

A jump diffusion model for VIX volatility options and futures

Volatility indices are becoming increasingly popular as a measure of market uncertainty and as a new asset class for developing derivative instruments. Although jumps are widely considered as a salient feature of volatility, their implications for pricing volatility options and futures are not yet fully understood. This paper provides evidence indicating that the time series behaviour of the VIX index is well approximated by a mean reverting logarithmic diffusion with jumps. This process is capable of capturing stylized facts of VIX dynamics such as fast mean-reversion at higher levels, level effects of volatility and large upward movements during times of market stress. Based on the empirical results, we provide closed-form valuation models for European options written on the spot and forward VIX, respectively.     

Continuous-time VIX dynamics: On the role of stochastic volatility of volatility

This paper examines the ability of several different continuous-time one- and two-factor jump-diffusion models to capture the dynamics of the VIX volatility index for the period between 1990 and 2010. For the one-factor models we study affine and non-affine specifications, possibly augmented with jumps. Jumps in one-factor models occur frequently, but add surprisingly little to the ability of the models to explain the dynamic of the VIX. We present a stochastic volatility of volatility model that can explain all the time-series characteristics of the VIX studied in this paper. Extensions demonstrate that sudden jumps in the VIX are more likely during tranquil periods and the days when jumps occur coincide with major political or economic events. Using several statistical and operational metrics we find that non-affine one-factor models outperform their affine counterparts and modeling the log of the index is superior to modeling the VIX level directly.     

Noise Momentum Around the World

We argue that arbitrageurs will strategically limit their initial investment in an arbitrage opportunity in anticipation of further mispricing caused by the deepening of noise traders' misperceptions. Such ‘noise momentum’ is an important determinant of the overall arbitrage process. We design an empirical strategy to capture noise momentum in a two‐period generalized error correction model. Applying it to a wide range of international spot‐futures market pairs, we document pervasive evidence of noise momentum around the world.     

沪深300股指期货定价误差及影响因素分析

文章运用持有成本模型、无套利定价原理以及回归分析,分别对日交易数据、日内5分钟数据对我国沪深300股指期货的定价误差及影响定价误差幅度的因素进行了实证研究,研究表明我国沪深300股指期货的价格在大多数时间是偏高的,在考虑套利成本的情况下,股指期货的定价在大多数时间是有效率的,但是在股票市场大幅波动的时段,股指期货的定价在存在较大幅度的定价误差。从影响股指期货定价误差幅度的因素来看,距到期日越远定价误差越大,现货指数波动越剧烈定价误差越大,股指期货持仓量对定价误差没有显著影响,加息对定价误差的影响跟加息日期有关。     

Have the predictability of oil changed during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from international stock markets

The COVID-19 has undoubtfully brought fierce shocks to the real economic activities, financial market and public lives. Under this special condition, this study explores whether the predictability of crude oil futures information has changed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic for 19 international stock markets. From an in-sample perspective, we find that the crude oil futures RV can significantly affect future stock volatility for each equity index except SSEC. Moreover, the out-of-sample results from statistic and economic perspective reveal that crude oil futures RV is a more efficient predictor during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the pre-crisis period. Furthermore, we find that the predictability of crude oil futures information is stronger from March to May 2020, when the epidemic is seriously prevailing. The empirical results from alternative evaluation method, recursive window method, alternative realized measures, controlling VIX and the seasonal effect, asymmetric forecasting window and different testing windows are robust and consistent. Our findings could offer novel and significant policy and practical implications.     

Volatility timing,sentiment, and the short-term profitability of VIX-based cross-sectional trading strategies

This paper explores the profitability of simple short-term cross-sectional trading strategies based on the implied volatility index (VIX), often referred to as an “investor fear gauge” in the stock market. These strategies involve holding sentiment-prone stocks when VIX is low and sentiment-immune stocks when VIX is high and generate significantly higher excess returns than the benchmark long–short portfolios that do not condition on VIX. We show that the profitability of our trading strategies is not subsumed by the well-known risk factors or transaction cost adjustments. Our findings are consistent with the theory of delayed arbitrage and the synchronization problem of Abreu and Brunnermeier (2002).     

On VIX futures in the rough Bergomi model

The rough Bergomi model introduced by Bayer et al. [Quant. Finance, 2015, 1–18] has been outperforming conventional Markovian stochastic volatility models by reproducing implied volatility smiles in a very realistic manner, in particular for short maturities. We investigate here the dynamics of the VIX and the forward variance curve generated by this model, and develop efficient pricing algorithms for VIX futures and options. We further analyse the validity of the rough Bergomi model to jointly describe the VIX and the SPX, and present a joint calibration algorithm based on the hybrid scheme by Bennedsen et al. [Finance Stoch., forthcoming].     

Which popular predictor is more useful to forecast international stock markets during the coronavirus pandemic: VIX vs EPU?

This study mainly investigates which predictors (VIX or EPU index) are useful to forecast future volatility for 19 equity indices based on HAR framework during coronavirus pandemic. Out-of-sample analysis shows that the HAR-RV-VIX model exhibits superior forecasting performance for 12 stock markets, while EPU index just can improve forecast accuracy for 5 equity indices, implying that VIX index is more useful for most stock markets' future volatility during coronavirus crisis. The results are robust in recursive window method, alternative realized measures and sub-sample analysis; moreover, VIX index still contains the strongest predictive ability by considering kitchen sink model and mean combination forecast. Furthermore, we further discuss the predictive effect of VIX and EPU index before the coronavirus crisis. Our article provides policy makers, researchers and investors with new insights into exploiting the predictive ability of VIX and EPU index for international stock markets during coronavirus pandemic.     

VIX option pricing and CBOE VIX Term Structure: A new methodology for volatility derivatives valuation

This study integrates CBOE VIX Term Structure and VIX futures to simplify VIX option pricing in multifactor models. Exponential and hump volatility functions with one- to three-factor models of the VIX evolution are used to examine their pricing for VIX options across strikes and maturities. The results show that using exponential volatility functions presents an effective choice as pricing models for VIX calls, whereas hump volatility functions provide efficient out-of-sample valuation for most VIX puts, in particular with deep in-the-money and deep out-of-the-money. Pricing errors for calls can be further reduced with a two-factor model.     

Short Selling and Index Arbitrage Profitability: Evidence from the SGX MSCI and TAIFEX Taiwan Index Futures Markets

There are numerous impediments to market efficiency and index arbitrage in real capital markets, including the uptick rule on short selling, execution risk, market impact costs, regulatory barriers, and capital constraints. Adopting and relaxing the uptick restriction in the Taiwan stock market facilitated a study on whether adjustments in this restriction influence the efficiency and arbitrage of the Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) and the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) index futures markets. This study examines the above issues using five-minute intraday transaction data and performs an ex post test of arbitrage, ex ante test of arbitrage, and regression analysis. Empirical results indicate that relaxing the uptick rule should improve market efficiency and facilitate long arbitrage, subsequently accelerating the adjustment to no-arbitrage bounds and helping to decrease ex post and ex ante mispricing and underpricing following the relaxation.     

Double-jump diffusion model for VIX: evidence from VVIX

This paper studies the continuous-time dynamics of VIX with stochastic volatility and jumps in VIX and volatility. Built on the general parametric affine model with stochastic volatility and jumps in the logarithm of VIX, we derive a linear relationship between the stochastic volatility factor and the VVIX index. We detect the existence of a co-jump of VIX and VVIX and put forward a double-jump stochastic volatility model for VIX through its joint property with VVIX. Using the VVIX index as a proxy for stochastic volatility, we use the MCMC method to estimate the dynamics of VIX. Comparing nested models of VIX, we show that the jump in VIX and the volatility factor are statistically significant. The jump intensity is also stochastic. We analyse the impact of the jump factor on VIX dynamics.