The price discovery role of day traders in futures market: Evidence from different types of day traders

Using proprietary account-level transaction data in the futures market where day traders are self-declared ex ante, this study investigates whether day traders enhance price discovery at the market level. From a natural classification of day traders, we find that heterogeneous day traders have differential effects on price discovery. Self-declared day traders, who benefit from low margin requirement, do not improve price discovery measured by information share. In contrast, non-declared traders, who are not self-declared as day traders, improve price discovery. Their positive impacts on price discovery are particularly significant during periods of high volatility and arrival of new information. Overall, a margin stimulating policy may encourage more day trading, but may also attract overconfident investors, especially inexperienced ones, and who do not enhance price discovery.     

The maturity effect of stock index futures: Speculation or carry arbitrage?

Using the implementation of trading restrictions on CSI 300 index futures market as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper examines the maturity effect of stock index futures and its determinants. The results show that the maturity effect changes from weakly positive to significantly negative after trading restrictions are implemented. We find that the change in the maturity effect is rooted in the speculative effect, which is measured by the time pattern of price sensitivity to information, while there is a lack of support for the carry arbitrage effect on the maturity effect of index futures. Our findings provide an opportunity to better understand volatility dynamics in the equity futures market.     

Good jump,bad jump,and option valuation

I develop a new class of closed‐form option pricing models that incorporate variance risk premium and symmetric or asymmetric double exponential jump diffusion. These models decompose the jump component into upward and downward jumps using two independent exponential distributions and thus capture the impact of good and bad news on asset returns and option prices. The empirical results show that the model with an asymmetric double exponential jump diffusion improves the fit on Shanghai Stock Exchange 50ETF returns and options and provides relatively better in‐ and out‐of‐sample pricing performance.     

Relevance of the disposition effect on the options market: New evidence

A moneyness‐based propensity to sell (MPS) measure, at the aggregate level, determines the propensity of option holders to exercise their winning relative to losing positions. Using data on individual stock and S&P 500 Index options, we find that the MPS measure has significant predictive power over the cross section of delta‐hedged option returns. We test the disposition effect in the options market based on a long–short strategy that exploits price distortions induced by the disposition bias. More pronounced evidence of the disposition bias is found for individual at‐the‐money call options than put options where the significance of abnormal returns remains robust across different subsamples even after we control for the portfolio option greeks and market‐based risk factors. The profitability of the long–short strategy is related to limit‐to‐arbitrage proxies suggesting that behavioral explanations help explain the positive relation between the MPS measure and delta‐hedged option returns.     

Modelling economic hysteresis losses caused by sunk adjustment costs

Transition from one economic equilibrium to another as a consequence of shocks is often associated with sunk adjustment costs. Firm-specific sunk market entry investments (or sunk market exit costs) in case of a reaction to price shocks are an example. These adjustment costs lead to a dynamic supply pattern similar to hysteresis. In analogy to “hysteresis losses” in ferromagnetism, the authors explicitly model dynamic adjustment losses in the course of market entry and exit cycles. They start from the micro level of a single firm and use explicit aggregation tools from hysteresis theory in mathematics and physics to calculate dynamic losses. The authors show that strong market fluctuations generate disproportionately large hysteresis losses for producers. This could give a reason for the implementation of stabilizing measures and policies to prevent strong (price) variations or, alternatively, to reduce the sunk entry and exit costs.     

A generalized algorithm for duration and convexity of option embedded bonds

This article derives a generalized algorithm for duration and convexity of option embedded bonds that provides a convenient way of estimating the dollar value of 1 basis point change in yield known as DV01, an important metric in the bond market. As delta approaches 1, duration of callable bonds approaches zero once the bond is called. However, when the delta is zero, the short call is worthless and duration of callable will be equal to that of a straight bond. On the other hand, the convexity of a callable bond follows the same behaviour when the delta is 1 as shown in Dunetz and Mahoney (1988) as well as in Mehran and Homaifar’s (1993) derivations. However, in the case when delta is zero, the convexity of a callable bond approaches zero as well, which is in stark contrast to the non-zero convexity derived in Dunetz and Mahoney’s paper. Our generalized algorithm shows that duration and convexity nearly symmetrically underestimate (overestimate) the actual price change by 11/10 basis points for ± 100 basis points change in yield. Furthermore, our algorithm reduces to that of MH for convertible bonds assuming the convertible bond is not callable.     

使用粒子群算法解决期权定价模型参数校准问题——以heston模型为例

期权定价模型的参数校准问题是一个常见的难题,以heston 模型为例,定价时需要估计6 个参数,参数估计问题实质上是高维非线性规划问题,由于估参函数的性质不好,一般的估参方法常常失效。使用粒子群（PSO）智能算法可以改善该模型的参数校准问题,因为粒子群算法具有内在随机性,因此参数估计中的局部极小值问题可以被较好地解决。使用2017 年12 月20 日的香港恒生指数期权作为估计样本,并对2017 年12 月25 日的期权进行样本外预测,数值结果表明使用heston 模型对期权进行定价并配合粒子群算法估计参数具有良好的定价效果。     

中国高层经理股票期权最优激励比例研究

高层经理股票期权机制将经理人员的报酬与公司的市场价值联系在一起,从而达到降低代理成本,增加社会福利的目的。目前国内关于股权激励问题的研究很多,但还存在着一定的争议,特别是关于股权激励的定量分析。本文以经济分析法为基本研究方法,辅以实证研究的方法以高层经理股票期权为内容进行了分析,针对最优期权比例的确立进行研究,通过委托-代理模型分析方法建立最优股权激励模型,并对影响最优股权激励的因素进行讨论,提出建议,以促使股票期权激励制在中国达到应有的实施效果。     

Inferring information from the S&P 500, CBOE VIX,and CBOE SKEW indices

This paper compares the information extracted from the S&P 500, CBOE VIX, and CBOE SKEW indices for the S&P 500 index option pricing. Based on our empirical analysis, VIX is a very informative index for option prices. Whether adding the SKEW or the VIX term structure can improve the option pricing performance depends on the model we choose. Roughly speaking, the VIX term structure is informative for some models, while the SKEW is very noisy and does not contain much important information for option prices. This paper also extends Zhang et al. (2017, J Futures Markets, 37, 211–237) into three typical affine models.     

Bid and ask prices of index put options: Which predicts the underlying stock returns?

In this study, we separately estimate the implied volatility from the bid and ask prices of deep out-of-the-money put options on the S&P500 index. We find that the implied volatility of ask prices has stronger predictive power for stock returns than does the implied volatility of bid prices. We identify two sources of the better performance of the ask price implied volatility: one is its stronger predictive power during economic recessions and in the presence of increasing intermediary capital risk, and the other is its richer information about the future market variance risk premium.