Index Futures and the Implied Volatility of Options
Author/Creator
Date
1988Type of Work
10 pagesText
journal articles
Citation of Original Publication
Morse, Joel N. "Index Futures and the Implied Volatility of Options," Review of Futures Markets, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1988, pp. 325-333Abstract
This paper examines the relation between the pricing of stock index futures contracts and the implied volatilities of index and individual equity options. For data from the 1986-1988 period, the difference between the implied volatility of calls and puts on the Standard and Poor's 100 index appears to be closely related to variation in the premium or discourse of the major U.S.-traded futures contracts. We construct an argument to support this observation. Reasons are also offered for the finding that index put volatilities exceed those for calls during the entire sample period.