Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Vol. 60 No. 4 2025
Does the Options Market Underreact to Firms’ Left-Tail Risk?
open access
Abstract
We show that firms’ left-tail risk positively predicts future returns of crash insurance. We proxy crash insurance with bear spreads, an option trading strategy that profits when extreme negative returns occur. Crash insurance for high (low) left-tail risk firms earns positive (negative) returns, suggesting that the downside protection it provides is not adequately priced. Our results are mainly explained by two types of underreaction: volatility underreaction in high left-tail risk portfolios and underreaction to the persistence of left-tail risk. Disagreement partially explains our results, but a risk-based approach does not.
- DOI
- 10.1017/s0022109024000309
- Volume
- 60
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1827-1858
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex