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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 161 2024

The risk and return of equity and credit index options

Hitesh Doshi1; Jan Ericsson2; Mathieu Fournier3; Sang Byung Seo4

1 University of Houston · 2 McGill University · 3 UNSW Sydney · 4 University of Wisconsin–Madison

Abstract

We develop a structural credit risk model, which allows us to price equity/credit indices and their options through the asset dynamics of index constituents. We estimate the model via MLE and find that equity and credit index option prices are well explained out-of-sample. Contrary to recent empirical findings, the two option markets are not inconsistently priced through the lens of our model. Returns on both options, while extreme, do not indicate any evidence of mispricing. Our analysis suggests that jointly addressing the pricing of various instruments requires properly attributing three different sources of systematic risk: asset, variance, and jump risks.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103932
Volume
161
Pages
103932
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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