Firm fundamentals and the cross-section of implied volatility shapes

Ding Chen, Biao Guo*, Guofu Zhou

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

With machine learning tools, we document that firm fundamentals have explanatory power on the shape of the option implied volatility (IV) curve that is both economically and statistically significant. We also find that, after accounting for fundamentals, the associated IV process can generate overreaction in the long-term IV with respect to change in the short-term IV, and can allow a positive profit from at-the-money straddle writing, explaining puzzling patterns in the literature. We also provide a simple model linking the IV to firm fundamentals, which permits realistic IV curves and is consistent with the empirical findings.

Original languageEnglish
Article number100771
Number of pages22
JournalJournal of Financial Markets
Volume63
Early online date6 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to Tarun Chordia (the editor) and an anonymous referee for very insightful and helpful comments that significantly improved the paper. We thank Carol Alexander, Gurdip Bakshi, Jie Cao, Jin-Chuan Duan, Steven Heston, Ranko Jelic, Andreas Kaeck, Hai Lin, Hong Liu, Zhan Shi, Ke Tang, and Hao Zhou, the participants of the XXVI AEFIN Finance Forum, the 2021 China Derivatives Youth Forum, and the 2021 China International Conference of Finance (CICF), and the participants of the seminars at Renmin University of China, University of Nottingham (Ningbo), University of Sussex, and Washington University in St. Louis for their helpful comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 72171225].

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022

Keywords

  • Firm fundamentals
  • LASSO
  • Option implied volatility
  • Option puzzle
  • Volatility skew

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Firm fundamentals and the cross-section of implied volatility shapes'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this