We set out in this study to determine whether individuals with higher levels of financial literacy are more likely to be active participants in the derivatives markets. Our empirical results, based upon an official National Survey undertaken by the Financial Supervisory Commission of Taiwan, reveal that even after controlling for stock market participation rates, financial literacy represents a significant benefit to individuals since it helps them to lower the entry barriers to purchasing complex derivatives products. We also find that household wealth, gender, residential location and diverse sources of information have significant effects on participation rates in the derivatives markets. Furthermore, when taking into consideration issues of accessibility or measurement error, the positive effects of financial literacy on derivatives market participation are found to remain largely unchanged.

This paper extends the static hedging portfolio (SHP) approach of Derman et al., 1995, Carr et al., 1998 to price and hedge American knock-in put options under the Black–Scholes model and the constant elasticity of variance (CEV) model. We use standard European calls (puts) to construct the SHPs for American up-and-in (down-and-in) puts. We also use theta-matching condition to improve the performance of the SHP approach. Numerical results indicate that the hedging effectiveness of a bi-monthly SHP is far less risky than that of a delta-hedging portfolio with daily rebalance. The numerical accuracy of the proposed method is comparable to the trinomial tree methods of Ritchken, 1995, Boyle and Tian, 1999. Furthermore, the recalculation time (the term is explained in Section 1) of the option prices is much easier and quicker than the tree method when the stock price and/or time to maturity are changed.

We examine the impact of derivatives hedging on the spot market using accurate hedge ratios of covered warrants traded in the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE). Results present significant positive abnormal returns and trading volumes before the announcement of a warrant’s issuance, and the effect is stronger when the hedging demand is larger. Moreover, a significantly positive relationship exists between stock return volatility and the price elasticity of hedging demand. Finally, we observe a significantly negative price effect upon the underlying stock after a call warrant has expired in-the-money due to the liquidation of hedging portfolios.

This paper investigates whether or not private benefits of control by managers and large shareholders influence the financing cost of firms. Evidence shows that lending banks demand a significantly higher loan spread, higher fees, shorter loan maturity, smaller loan size, stricter covenants, and greater collateral on firms with greater private benefits of control. Results are stronger for firms with weak corporate governance quality, supporting the agency cost viewpoint. Such evidence implies that banks consider higher private benefits of control as a type of agency problem when they make lending decisions.

This study examines intraday momentum in the unexplored VIX futures market and verifies its existence through various empirical tests. The intraday momentum of VIX futures appears to be robust across contracts with different expirations, intraday returns with different time intervals, different trading sessions, and multiple sub-periods. We propose that the hedging demand of VIX option market makers may contribute to the intraday momentum. Our empirical evidence shows that intraday momentum persists only when the net gamma exposure of VIX options is negative and the effect weakens when European investors are away from the market, supporting our proposed explanation. Strikingly, we also find that trading strategies based on intraday momentum can generate an average annualized return of up to nearly 18%.