Volatility Dynamics for the S&P500: Evidence from Realized Volatility, Daily Returns, and Option Prices

Peter Christoffersen, Kris Jacobs and Karim Mimouni

The Review of Financial Studies, 2010, vol. 23, issue 8, 3141-3189

Abstract: Most recent empirical option valuation studies build on the affine square root (SQR) stochastic volatility model. The SQR model is a convenient choice, because it yields closed-form solutions for option prices. We investigate alternatives to the SQR model, by comparing its empirical performance with that of five different but equally parsimonious stochastic volatility models. We provide empirical evidence from three different sources: realized volatilities, S&P500 returns, and an extensive panel of option data. The three sources of data all point to the same conclusion: the best volatility specification is one with linear rather than square root diffusion for variance. This model captures the stylized facts in realized volatilities, it performs well in fitting various samples of index returns, andit has the lowest option implied volatility mean squared error in and out of sample. The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (132)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhq032 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:23:y:2010:i:8:p:3141-3189

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Financial Studies is currently edited by Itay Goldstein

More articles in The Review of Financial Studies from Society for Financial Studies Oxford University Press, Journals Department, 2001 Evans Road, Cary, NC 27513 USA.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().