Why are prices of ESTX50 ATM options so different ?

[OddTrader]

Q

If the put is more expensive than the call, what does it mean



If an At the money Put trades for much higher than the ATM call, can we say that people are expecting the stock to move down? After all, what else could be the reason if the put is more expensive than the call? Please refer to the 43 strike call and put.

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Sorry the picture is so small, enlarging it is not working with mspaint.



UQ

http://money.stackexchange.com/ques...ore-expensive-than-the-call-what-does-it-mean


Q

3 Answers

#1

There are many reasons. Here are just some possibilities:

The stock has a lot of negative sentiment and puts are being "bid up".

The stock fell at the close and the options reflect that.

The puts closed on the offer and the calls closed on the bid.

The traders with big positions marked the puts up and the calls down because they are long puts and short calls.

There isn't enough volume in the puts or calls to make any determination - what you are seeing is part of the randomness of a moment in time.

#2

What it means is that the stock has already moved down. Options and other derivatives follow the price of the underlying they are not a precursor to what the underlying is going to do. In other words, the price of a derivative is derived from the underlying.

#3

down vote


It is a fool's errand to attribute abnormal option volume or volatility to any meaningful move in the stock.

One side of the chain is frequently more expensive than the other.

The relationship between historical volatility and implied volatility is dubious at best, and also a big area of study.



UQ

 

[OddTrader]

Q

42 pages:

http://www.investps.com/images/Why_Are_Put_Options_So_Expensive.pdf

Why are Put Options So Expensive?
∗
OlegBondarenko
†
Abstract
This paper studies the “overpriced puts puzzle” – the finding that historical prices of the
S&P 500 put options have been too high and incompatible with the canonical asset-pricing
models, such as CAPM and Rubinstein (1976) model. Simple trading strategies that involve
selling at-the-money and out-of-the-money put
s would have earned extraordinary profits.
To investigate whether put returns could be rationalized by another, possibly nonstandard
equilibrium model, we implement a new methodology. The methodology is “model-free” in
the sense that it requires no parametric assumptions on investors’ preferences. Furthermore,
the methodology can be applied even when the sa
mple is affected by certain selection biases
(such as the Peso problem) and when investors’ beliefs are incorrect.
We find that
no
model within a fairly broad class of models can possibly explain the
put anomaly.

... ...


5 Conclusion

In this paper, we implement a novel methodology to test rationality of asset pricing. The
main advantage of the methodology is that it requires no parametric assumptions about the
unobservable pricing kernel or investors’ preferences. Furthermore, it can be applied even
when the sample is affected by the Peso problem and when investors’ beliefs are incorrect. The
methodology is based on the new rationality restriction, which states that securities prices
deflated by RND evaluated at the eventual outcome must follow a martingale.
We implement the new methodology in the context of the overpriced puts puzzle. The
puzzle is that historical prices of puts on the S&P 500 Index have been extremely high and
incompatible with the canonical asset-pricing models. The economic impact of the put mis-
pricing appears to be very large. Simple trading strategies that sell unhedged puts would have
earned extraordinary paper profits.
To investigates whether put returns could be rationalized in a possibly nonstandard equi-
librium model, we test the new rationality restriction. The required information about RND
is estimated nonparametrically from prices of traded options. We find that the new restriction
is strongly rejected, meaning that
no
model from a broad class of models can possibly explain
the put anomaly, even when allowing for the possibility of the Peso problem and incorrect
beliefs. In the light of our results, one might have to 1) develop a new kind of general equi-
librium models, for which the pricing kernels is strongly path-dependent with respect to the
market portfolio (such models are currently not available); 2) entertain the possibility that
investors are not fully rational and that they commit systematic cognitive errors; and 3) ques-
tion other standard theoretical assumptions (such as the absence of market frictions). Only
future research will provide a better understanding of the put puzzle.

UQ

So the title of the thread is "Why are prices of ESTX50 ATM options so different", bold added by me. Put call parity doesn't require an exact straddle and as Robert pointed out so nicely the parity price is the future not the spot.

Even when not ATM, there are only a few cases where it's been shown that puts generally cost more than calls, and even then it only applies to far OTM puts (http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010139214500153 is a good paper to get you started) The volatility smile is super interesting to me, it might be worth a deep dive if you have the time.

 

[rmorse]

The real reason that calls trade higher than puts is due to the cost of carry for the stock. Remember that a call option gives you the right to buy the stock. I

That is not quite accurate. When interest rates are higher, in an institutional account, you can short stock and get paid on the cash balance. So when you buy a call, the natural hedge is to short stock delta neutral. So calls are higher if you can get paid for short stock. With interest rates near zero and no one is being paid for short stock, calls and puts are virtually identical. If the stock is hard to borrow, puts will be higher. As interest rates rise, calls vs the puts will rise, not because of demand, but because of the inputs into the model.

 

[OddTrader]

That is not quite accurate. When interest rates are higher, in an institutional account, you can short stock and get paid on the cash balance. So when you buy a call, the natural hedge is to short stock delta neutral. So calls are higher if you can get paid for short stock. With interest rates near zero and no one is being paid for short stock, calls and puts are virtually identical. If the stock is hard to borrow, puts will be higher. As interest rates rise, calls vs the puts will rise, not because of demand, but because of the inputs into the model.

Not going to discuss something that is not said by me this time! I was quoting others just for reference!

 

[Sig]

Not going to discuss something that is not said by me this time! I was quoting others just for reference!

Why don't we do this. Please explain to us what put call parity is and why it holds for ATM options. In order to do that you'll have to learn what put call parity is, and based on the stuff you've been posting I'm guessing you'll find it doesn't mean what you thought it meant.

 

[OddTrader]

Why don't we do this. Please explain to us what put call parity is and why it holds for ATM options. In order to do that you'll have to learn what put call parity is, and based on the stuff you've been posting I'm guessing you'll find it doesn't mean what you thought it meant.

Thanks for posting a grossly illogical statement, with such a logical thinking! Logically, on Ignore!

Not going to discuss something that is not said by me this time! I was quoting others just for reference!

 

[botpro]

Eureka!
I have developed/invented a brand new formula to calculate/extract the priced-in dividend if all the other params (spot, strike, t, interest, hvola) are known.
It works with continuous dividend yield.
For this case, ie.:

Stox50 (ESTX50) Index
Cur Date = 2016-02-25-Th
Exp Date = 2018-06-15
--> biz_days = 581 (2.3 years = 10.1667 + 12 + 5.5 = 27.667 months)
Spot     = 2861.38
Strike   = 2850
HV       = 25.247
IV       = 29.7
Interest = 0
Dividend = ? <--- to be determined
MidCall  = 264.75
MidPut   = 518.50

it gives a dividend yield of 4.86% p.a.
Compounded over the remaining t=2.3 years this makes 11.82% (ie. 100 * exp(4.86/100 * 2.3) - 100 = 11.82%).

 

[CBC]

Isn't the reason simply because the market can go down further and faster than what it can go up?

 

[Sig]

Thanks for posting a grossly illogical statement, with such a logical thinking! Logically, on Ignore!

Point made then, that explains your comments up to now.

As a public service announcement I'll give a quick summary of what put call parity is. Assume you had a stock at $100, the put was selling for $2 and the call for $1. Because the stock can go down faster than it can go up, or people want protection, or whatever other admittedly rational reason you would think that to be the case. I can then sell a put for $2, go short the stock, and buy a call for $1. I'm left with $1. This locks in a $1 risk free profit for me.
-If the stock goes down, my call expires worthless and at expiration my short stock position and the put I sold cancel out, so flat on that and I still have the $1 from selling my put for $1 more than the call.
-If the stock stays flat my put and my call expire worthless, my short position is flat, and I still have $1 from selling my put for more than my call.
-If the stock goes up, my put expires worthless, my gain from my call exactly cancels my loss from my short, and I still have $1 from initially selling the put for $1 more than the call.
In all cases, I end up with a $1 for no risk. Since this is the easiest money in the world to make, there are thousands of bots out looking for this situation continuously and if it occurs they execute exactly the transaction I described over and over until whatever rational reason for the excessive put demand is overwhelmed and the put and call go back to equilibrium.
Obviously there are some transaction costs and if the stock is hard to borrow it won't hold, but again that isn't the case for the OP. You also have to take dividends into account for european exercise options, as has been mentioned. Note that it doesn't have the be an exact ATM straddle. If the stock was at $99 I could still sell a $100 put and buy a $100 call and make the arb profit if the put was more expensive than the call. Not more expensive in absolute terms, but in terms of intrinsic + time value. It isn't going to hold when you're way OTM, but if you read the paper that OddTrader (and earlier I) posted, you'll find that the volatility surface is surprisingly symmetrical and in fact that paper is all about why it's surprising that OTM puts are more expensive than calls in the S&P 500 when they aren't most other places (first line of the abstract "This paper studies the "overpriced puts puzzle" — the finding that historical prices of the S&P 500 put options have been too high and incompatible with the canonical asset-pricing models.").
This is a non-obvious thing; I remember that I was surprised at it when I first learned it. Then I did the math, did some real world trades just to convince myself, and now accept it as a good explanation of how this tiny corner of the world works. Happy to adjust my version of that though if anyone wants to point out any errors combined with a better way.