Python Programming in Finance Futures & Options Zheng-Liang Lu

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Python Programming in Finance

Futures & Options

Zheng-Liang Lu

Department of Computer Science & Information Engineering National Taiwan University

Online Course

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Introduction

• A derivative is a financial instrument whose value depends on (or derives from) the values of other, more basic, underlying assets.

• Four major types of derivatives are forwards¹,futures², options³, andswaps⁴.

1See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_contract.

2See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_contract and https://www.cmegroup.com/education/courses/

introduction-to-futures.html.

3See https://www.cmegroup.com/education/courses/

introduction-to-options.html.

4See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swap_(finance).

Zheng-Liang Lu Python Programming in Finance 1

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Futures Contracts

• A futures contract is an agreement between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a certain time in the future for a certain price.

• For example, index futures (say TX⁵ and S&P 500 E-Mini⁶), equity futures⁷, commodity futures⁸ (say crude oil, gold, corn, and cocoa), weather futures⁹, and cryptocurrency futures (say, Bitcoin¹⁰).

5See https://www.taifex.com.tw/cht/2/tX.

6See https://www.investing.com/indices/us-spx-500-futures.

7See https://pchome.megatime.com.tw/group/mkt5/cidE008.html.

8See https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/ and http://www.stockq.org/market/commodity.php.

9See https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/weather/files/

weather-futures-and-options-fact-card.pdf.

10See https:

//www.cmegroup.com/markets/cryptocurrencies/bitcoin/bitcoin.html.

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Payoff of Futures

80 90 100 110 120 Price of Underlying Asset 20

10 0 10 20

Payoff

Long position Short position

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One of Applications: Hedging

80 90 100 110 120 Price of Underlying Asset 20

10 0 10 20

Payoff

Long position Short position Hedging: long + short

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Futures Contracts (Cont’d)

• A contract’sexpiration date is the last day you can trade that contract.

• For example, the expiration date of TX contracts is the 3rd Wednesday each month.

• Futures margin is an amount of capital one needs to deposit to control a futures contract.

• Be responsible for assuring that adequate funds are on deposit with the brokerage firm for margin purposes.¹¹

• If not, you cannot trade any futures.

• It is called themargin trading.

11See https://www.taifex.com.tw/cht/5/indexMarging.

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Futures Contracts (Concluded)

• An index futures is a cash-settledfutures contract while a commodity futures may be settled by physical delivery.

• For example, WTI crude oil futures.¹²

• Further information about futures could be found in the footnote.¹³

• For example, futures markets provide aprice discovery mechanism, especially when trading in the off-market hours.¹⁴

12See https://www.oilandgas360.com/

wti-crude-oil-futures-prices-fell-below-zero-because-of-low-liquidity-and-limited-available-storage/.

13See https://www.yuantafutures.com.tw/futureinvest_01, https://rich01.com/futures-least-margin-100/, and https://zerodha.com/varsity/module/futures-trading/.

14See https://www.cmegroup.com/education/courses/

introduction-to-futures/price-discovery.html.

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News: Crude Oil Futures Prices Turn Negative

¹⁵

15See https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11354.

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Futures Pricing

• Let S₀ be the spot price, and F₀ be the futures price at time 0.

• The (theoretical) futures price is

F0= S0e^cT, (1)

where T is the time to maturity, and c is thecost of carry for the futures contract.

• For a non-dividend-paying stock, c = r where r is the risk-free interest rate.

• For a dividend-paying stock, c = r − q where q is the dividend yield rate.

• For a commodity requiring storage costs at rate u, c = r + u.

• The situation of F0> S0 is called contango;backwardation when F₀ < S₀.

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Example

• Assume that the current market index is 17000 with r = 3%

and q = 5%.

• Then the resulting price of the near-month(T = 1 / 12) futures is

17000 × e^−0.02/12= 16971.69.

• For the next-month(T = 1 / 6) futures, its price is 16943.43.

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Convergence between Spot Price and Futures Price

¹⁶

• By equation (1), the futures price always converges upon the spot price on the day of the expiry.

2021-07-01 2021-07-08 2021-07-15 2021-07-22 2021-08-01 2021-08-08 2021-08-15 16600

16800 17000 17200 17400 17600 17800 18000

Price

TWIITX (202107) TX (202108)

16You can find the historical futures priceshere.

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2021-07-01 2021-07-08 2021-07-15 2021-07-22 2021-08-01 2021-08-08 2021-08-15 300

250 200 150 100 50 0

Price Difference

202107 202108

2021-07-01 2021-07-08 2021-07-15 2021-07-22 2021-08-01 2021-08-08 2021-08-15 1.50

1.25 1.00 0.75 0.50 0.25 0.00 0.25

Price Difference (%)

202107 202108

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Option Contracts

¹⁸

• A call/putoption gives the holder to the right tobuy/sell an asset bythe expiration (or maturity) date, denoted by T , for the exercise (or strike) price, denoted by X .

• European options can be exercised only on the expiration date itself, whereas American optionscan be exercised at any time up to the expiration date.

• For example, index options (say TXO¹⁷) and foreign exchange options, options on futures.

17See https://www.taifex.com.tw/cht/2/tXO.

18You may also hear about thewarrantcontracts. See

http://www.differencebetween.net/business/finance-business-2/

difference-between-warrants-and-options.

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Payoff for Call & Put

80 90 100 110 120

Stock Price 0

5 10 15 20 25

Payoff

Call Put

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Moneyness

• Take a call option as an example:

80 90 100 110 120

Stock Price 0

5 10 15 20 25

Payoff

In-The-Money (ITM) Out-of-The-Money (OTM)

At-The-Money (ATM)

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Long/Short Position in Call/Put

80 90 100 110 120 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Long Call

80 90 100 110 120 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Short Call

80 90 100 110 120 Stock Price 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Long Put

80 90 100 110 120 Stock Price 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Short Put

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!!! WARNING !!!

• Buying a call/put option offers limited risk and unlimited reward.¹⁹

• Selling a naked call/put option, however, has limited reward, andunlimited risk!²⁰

19See https://finance.ettoday.net/news/1999215.

20See https://www.peopo.org/news/379679.

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Example: 3300% Rate of Return?

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Hedging: Protective Put

80 90 100 110 120 Stock Price

20 10 0 10 20

Payoff

Stock Put Stock + Put

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Put-Call Parity

futures call put

long position S − X (S − X )⁺ (X − S )⁺ short position −(S − X ) −(S − X )⁺ −(X − S)⁺

• Note that (·)⁺ denotes max(0, ·).

• It is clear that

long futures = long call + short put because S − X = (S − X )⁺− (X − S)⁺.²¹

21More precisely, the best bid of futures could be the best ask of put minus the best bid of call while the best ask of futures could be the best ask of call minus the best bid of put.

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Illustration

80 90 100 110 120 Stock Price

20 10 0 10 20

Payoff

Long a call (C) Short a put (P)

80 90 100 110 120 Stock Price

20 10 0 10

20 Long a stock S = C P + X

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Time Value

80 90 100 110 120

Stock Price 5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Payoff

Call option at expiration

Call option before expiration (1 mo)

Option value =intrinsic value + time value

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Premium: There is No Free Lunch

80 90 100 110 120

Stock Price 5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Payoff

Call option at expiration

Call option before expiration (1 mo)

• In this case, the option holder (buyer) pays $3.87 to the option writer (seller).

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Long/Short Position in Call/Put (Revisited)

80 90 100 110 120 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Long Call

80 90 100 110 120 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Short Call

80 90 100 110 120 Stock Price 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Long Put

80 90 100 110 120 Stock Price 30

20 10 0 10 20 30

Payoff

Short Put

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Selected Trading Strategies with Options: Illustration

90 95 100 105 110

6 4 2 0 2 4 6

Payoff

Long Straddle Call (X = 100) Put (X = 100) Straddle = C + P

90 95 100 105 110

6 4 2 0 2 4 6

Long Strangle Call (X = 105) Put (X = 95) Strangle = C + P

90 95 100 105 110

10 5 0 5

Long Butterfly

CL (X = 95) C (X = 100) CH (X = 105) Butterfly = CL + CH 2 C

90 95 100 105 110

Stock Price 6

4 2 0 2 4 6

Payoff

Short Straddle

Call (X = 100) Put (X = 100) Straddle = C P

90 95 100 105 110

Stock Price 6

4 2 0 2 4 6

Short Strangle Call (X = 105) Put (X = 95) Strangle = C P

90 95 100 105 110

Stock Price 5

0 5 10

Short Butterfly CL (X = 95) C (X = 100) CH (X = 105) Butterfly = 2 C CL CH

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Arbitrage

• Let V_Π⁰ = 0 be the initial value of the portfolio Π at time 0.

• Then Π is arbitrageous if Pr(V_Π¹ ≥ 0) = 1.

• Simply put, Π is asure win.

• This is called arbitrage, a process that you make a profit without bearing any risk.

• The arbitrage-free principle is the central concept of option pricing.²²

22Also see the arbitrage pricing theory.

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Example 1: Protective Put (Revisited)

• To hedge your long position in stock XYZ, you decide to buy its put option with the strike price $100.

• For simplicity, one option contract covers one stock share.

• Now you have 1000 shares of XYZ.

• Assume that the stock price will be $150 or $50.

• How many contracts of this put option you need to buy?

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• Let x be the number of option contracts to protect one share.

• Then the final value of the portfolio (XYZ + protective put) should be

150 +0x = 50 +50x ,

• It is clear that x = 2 and the final value is $150,000.

• So we need 2000 contracts of this put option.

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Example 2: Pricing

• Assume that the initial stock price is $100 and the risk-free rate for one period is 5%.

• Let P be the put price.

• The initial portfolio value is

(100 + 2P) × 1000.

• By the arbitrage-free principle, 100 + 2P = 150

1.05 = 142.86.

• So it is clear that P = 21.43.

• You need $42,860 (= P × 2000) to buy protective puts.²³

23You need to pay (insurance) premium to acquire protection.

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Example 3: Mispricing

• If the put price is overpriced, say P^′ = 25, then you could now sellthe portfolio and buyto close the short position in the end:

(100 + 2 × 25)× 1.05 −150> 0.

• If the put price is underpriced, say P^′′= 20, then you could play the previous strategy in opposite direction:

150−(100 + 2 × 20)× 1.05 > 0.

• The above two cases show the presence of arbitrage.

• Hence P = 21.43 is the fair priceof this put option.

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The 1

^st

and 2

^nd

Theorem of Asset Pricing

• Fundamental Theorem of Arbitrage Pricing: there exists a risk-neutral probability measure if and only if arbitrages do not exist.

• An arbitrage-free market may admit more than one risk-neutral probability measure.

• Economists call such markets incomplete.²⁴

• Completeness Theorem: a complete market is one that has a unique equilibrium measure.

• In a complete market, any derivative security can behedged by replicatingthe portfolio from the market.

24It could be said that there are necessarily derivative securities that cannot be hedged.

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Pricing ↔ Replication ↔ Hedging

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Binomial Option Pricing Model (BOPM)

One-Period Case

• Let X be the strike price and r be the risk-free interest rate.

• Let S be the price at time 0.

• Let u and d be the jump size for the up and down movement at time T .²⁵

• Let p_u and p_d denote the transitional probability for Su and Sd , respectively.

25It could be proved that 0 < d ≤ u is equivalent to the arbitrage-free principle.

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Binomial Tree

S

Sd

p_d p_u

Su

• For a fair bet, solve the following simultaneous equations (p_u+ p_d = 1,

puSu + pdSd = Se^rT.

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• It is easy to see that

pu= e^rT − d u − d .

• If 0 ≤ p_u, p_d ≤ 1, then the call price C is

C = e^−rTp_u(Su − X )⁺+ p_d(Sd − X )⁺ .

• Note that p_uand p_d are so-called therisk-neutralprobabilities.

• Under this risk-neutral probability measure,

C = e^−rTE^Q (S_T− X )⁺ . (2)

• This equality also holds for continuous-time cases.

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BOPM: A 3-Period Case

• A non-dividend-paying stock is selling for $160.

• Assume that u = 1.5, d = 0.5, and r = 18.232% per period (R = e^0.18232= 1.2).

• Hence the probability of an up move is p = R − d

u − d = 0.7.

• Consider a European call on this stock with X = 150.

• The call value is $85.069 by backward induction.

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1 import numpy as np

2

3 s0 = 160 # spot price

4 X = 150 # strike price

5 n = 3 # periods

6 R = 1.2 # gross return for each period

7 u = 1.5 # size of up move

8 d = 0.5 # size of down move

9

10 p = (R − d) / (u − d) # probability of up move

11

12 # generate the forward price tree

13 tree = np.zeros([n + 1, n + 1])

14 tree[0, 0] = s0

15 for period in range(1, n + 1):

16 for level in range(period + 1):

17 tree[level, period] = s0 * u ** (period − level) * d **

level

18

19 # see the next page

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1 # calculate the payoff at expiration

2 for level in range(n + 1):

3 payoff = tree[level, n] − X

4 tree[level, n] = payoff if payoff> 0 else 0

5

6 # calculate the option price at time 0 by backward induction

7 for period in range(n − 1, −1, −1):

8 for level in range(period + 1):

9 tree[level, period] = (p * tree[level, period + 1] + (1

− p) * tree[level + 1, period + 1]) / R

10

11 print(tree)

12 print("c =", round(tree[0, 0], 2)) # output 85.07

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Risk-Neutral Valuation

²⁶

for Call Options

26Also calledmartingale pricing. See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_pricing.

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Remarks

• The arbitrage-free principle determines the fair price of options.

• The fair price is the discounted payoff of the contingency claim under the risk-neutral probability measure.

• A further question is,

How does the price evolve over time?

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Geometric Brownian Motion

²⁹

• Let µ be the expected return rate, σ be the annual volatility, and T be the time to maturity.

• Then we assume that the return rate of S_t follows dS_t

S_t = µdt + σdW_t, (3)

where Wt ∼ N(0, T ) is the Wiener process.²⁷

• By Itˆo’s lemma²⁸, the stock price at time T is S_T = S₀e^(µ−σ²^{/2)T +σW}^T, where S0 is the spot price.

27See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_process.

28Itˆo (1944). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ito’s_lemma.

29See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion.

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Generalized Wiener Process: Illustration

³⁰

0 50 100 150 200 250 Time

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

X

t

= 1

0= 2

= 0

= 2

W

t

t + W

t

t +

⁰

W

t

30

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Example: Price Path Simulation

³¹

0 50 100 150 200 250

Date 90

100 110 120 130 140 150 160

Price

Path 1 Path 2 Path 3

31S0= 100, µ = 0.1, σ = 0.3, T = 1, N = 250.

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Example: Monte Carlo Method for European Options

0 50 100 150 200 250

Date 50

100 150 200 250 300 350

Price

0 20 40 60

Frequency 50

100 150 200 250 300 350

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0 100 200 300 400 Stock Price

0 2000 4000 6000 8000

Frequency

C = 16.76 P = 7.31

• The number of simulation paths can be determined by its standard error of the estimator.

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2

3 S0 = 100

4 X = 100

5 r = 0.1

6 v = 0.3

7 T = 1

8

9 N = 100000 # for example

10 Z = np.random.normal(size = (N, 1))

11 S = S0 * np.exp((r − 0.5 * v ** 2) * T + v * np.sqrt(T) * Z)

12 C = np.sum(S[S> X] − X) / N / np.exp(r * T)

13 P = np.sum(X − S[X> S]) / N / np.exp(r * T)

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From BOPM to Black-Scholes Formula

• Consider the log price ln St.

• By Itˆo’s lemma, it can be shown that d ln S_t = rdt + σdW_t, where r = µ −σ²

2 .

• To match the mean and the variance of the above equation, (q_uln u + (1 − q_u) ln d = r ∆t,

quln²u + (1 − qu) ln²d = r²∆t²+ σ²∆t.

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• Choosing ud = 1, it can be shown that

u = e^σ

√

∆t, qu= 1 2 +r√

∆t 2σ .

• It is worth to mention that

pu= e^{r ∆t}− d u − d → q_u as ∆t → 0.

• This is well known as the CRR binomial model³², which is proved to converge to the Black-Scholes formula.

32Cox, Ross and Rubinstein (1979).

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Black-Scholes Formula for European Options

³⁴

• Insert equation (3) into equation (2).

• Then we could drive the famous option pricing formula

C (S , X , r , σ, T ) = SN(d₁) − Xe^−rTN(d₂), (4) where N(·) is the normal cdf, d1 = (ln(S/X )+(r +σ²/2)T )

σ√

T and

d2= d1− σ√ T .³³

• By the put-call parity,

P = C − S + Xe^−rT.

33Try https://www.taifex.com.tw/cht/9/calOptPrice.

34Black and Scholes (1973), Merton (1973). Scholes and Merton are awarded with the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for a new method of determining the value of derivatives. See https:

//www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1997/summary/.

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Example

2 import scipy.stats

3

4 s0 = 100

5 X = 100

6 r = 0.1

7 v = 0.3

8 T = 1

9

10 d1 = (np.log(s0 / X) + (r + 0.5 * v ** 2)) / np.sqrt(T) / v

11 d2 = d1 − np.sqrt(T) * v

12 C = s0 * scipy.stats.norm.cdf(d1) − X * np.exp(−r * T) * scipy.

stats.norm.cdf(d2)

13 print(C)

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Trading Volatility

• Options are a popular vehicle forspeculation.

• Speculative trades would arguably be more inclined to buy a call than to buy its stock if the stock is bullish and expected high future volatility.

• Buying options is buying volatilityandselling options is selling volatility.

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Historical/Implied Volatility

• Historical volatility (HV) is the annualized standard deviation of daily returns.

• Implied volatility (IV) is the volatility input in a pricing model that, in conjunction with the other four inputs, returns the theoretical value of an option matching the market price.

• What is the difference between HV and IV?

• HV: what has happened.

• IV: derived from the market’s expectation for future volatility.

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How to Use IV?

• You could deannualize IV to the daily IV by

√IV

256 = 1-day expected σ.

• For example, assume that the period in question is one month and there are 22 business days remaining in that month.

• The ATM call for the$100 stock is traded at 32% IV.

• Then it has a one-month volatility

√0.32 256×√

22 = 9.38%.

• It is equivalent to say that there is 68% chance of the stock’s closing between $90.62 and $109.38.

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How to Calculate IV?

• We know the spot price S , the time to maturity T , the risk-free rate r , and also the option price C with the strike price X .

• The only unobservable parameter is the volatility σ.

• We invert equation (4) to calculate (more precisely, estimate) σ by the Newton’s method.³⁵

• This resulting volatility is called the implied volatility because the volatility is impliedby the Black-Scholes formula with the market prices.

35You may also use the bisection method in this problem.

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Newton’s Method

³⁶

• Let f (x ) be the target function and x^∗ be the root of f .

• Then x^∗ could be found by using the iterative formula x^k+1 ← x^k − f

f^′, where f^′ = df

dx at x^k.

• The loop halts when the convergence criteria is satisfied, say

| x^k+1− x^k| < ε for a constant ε small enough.

36See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton’s_method.

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How to Calculate IV? (Concluded)

• Now consider the European call C = f (S , X , r , σ, T ).

• Then

σk+1 ← σ_k +C − f (S , X , r , σk, T )

ν ,

where ν = ∂f

∂σ is called the vega.

• Note that the vega of European options is ν = SN(d1)

√ T > 0.

• The higher the volatility input, the higher the theoretical value, holding all other variables constant.

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Examples

8000 9000 10000 11000 12000 13000 Strike Price

10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Implied Volatility (%)

Evaluation Date: 2019-8-30 Maturity Date: 2019-9-18

TXO Call TXO Put

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14000 15000 16000 17000 18000 19000 Strike Price

30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65

Implied Volatility (%)

Evaluation Date: 2021-05-12 Maturity Date: 2021-05-19

TXO Call TXO Put

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Case Study: CBOE VIX Index

³⁷

37See https://www.cboe.com/tradable_products/vix/.

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1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 Date (year)

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

CBOE Volatility Index

6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5

S&P 500 Index (log scale)

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20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Return Rate of VIX Index (%)

10 5 0 5 10

Return Rate of S&P 500 Index (%)

Correlation = 0.707678

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Beyond the Black-Scholes Formula

• As we can see, the IV curve violets the assumption of constant volatility.³⁸

• Empirically, stock returns tend to havefat tails, inconsistent with the Black-Scholes model’s assumptions.

• Later, the stochastic volatility models and thejump-diffusion modelsare proposed to tackle with this issue.

• In the time series analysis, the ARCH modeland its variants are also used to estimate the volatility, especially in risk management.³⁹

38This is called thevolatility smile (smirk). See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility_smile. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility_clustering and https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/assymetricvolatility.asp.

39See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoregressive_conditional_

heteroskedasticity.

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Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) Model

⁴⁰

• The CIR Model is a square-root mean reverting process following

drt= κ(θ − rt)dt + σ√ rtdWt,

where rt is the interest rate at time t, κ is the mean-reverting rate, θ is the long-term mean of r_t, σ is the volatility of r_t, and dW_t is a Wiener process.

• The CIR model is widely used in modeling interest rate, commoditiy price, and price volatility (or variance).

40Cox, Ingersoll, Ross (1985).

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Illustration

⁴¹

0 50 100 150 200 250

Time 4

5 6 7 8 9 10

Interest Rate (%)

41r0= 4%, θ = 8%, κ = 2, σ = 10%, T = 1, N = 250.

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Heston Model

• Heston (1993) exploits the CIR model to capture the dynamic of price volatility:

dS

S = µdt +√

vtdW1,t, dv_t = κ(θ − v_t)dt + σ√

v_tdW_2,t,

where v_r is the price variance of S_t and dW_1,t × dW_2,t = ρ.

• In particular, ρ is typically negative in the stock market.

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Illustration

⁴²

0 50 100 150 200 250

90 100

Price

0 50 100 150 200 250

Time 20

30

Volatility (%)

Path 1 Path 2 Path 3

42S0= 100, r = 1%, v0= 0.09, θ = 0.04, κ = 3, σ = 0.3, ρ = −0.7, N = 250.

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Merton’s Jump-Diffusion Model

• Merton (1976) superimposes a jump component on a diffusion component.

• The jump component is composed of lognormal jumps driven by a Poisson process.⁴³

• It models the sudden changes in the stock price because of the arrival of important new information.

• The risk-neutral jump-diffusion process follows dS_t

S_t = (r − λκ)dt + σdW_t+ κdq_t,

where q_t is compound Poisson process with intensity λ, where κ denotes the magnitude of the random jump.

43See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_point_process.

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Illustration

0 50 100 150 200 250

Time 80

85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120

Price

Path 1 Path 2