Why might a deep ITM call have a very low implied volatility? Don't deep in the money options tend to have a higher implied volatility due to the fear of extreme events?
Quote from Alex the Great:
Why might a deep ITM call have a very low implied volatility? Don't deep in the money options tend to have a higher implied volatility due to the fear of extreme events?
Quote from tivthetrader:
nate,
What are you talking about? That is 100%wrong. A deep in the money call will move basically with the stock. Now if you take a high flyer, buy the deep in the money, sell an out of the money, or even if you are more adventurous a 1 by 2, then by a put underneath and a call above that you may have something. But what you sayeth is 100 % falseth.
Although, if you take into consideration current monetary policy and the ppt and the Bernake factor, all long instruments have no risk and therefore should have a low iv. This statement is meant to be sarcastic.
Quote from NastyNate:
He was talking about deep itm (Volatility). Sorry for if you understood me wrong. I understand your concept but that what he was not asking for. I was writing about the concept of Deep ITM Volatility. Oh yea BTW if you want to buy a deep itm. You'll have a better chance of doing LEAPS than that. Because DEEP ITM contracts pretty sure have a higher option contract pricing you might make money but I can guarantee you the Commison fee's is going to kill your profit.
Quote from rew:
You are bringing up issues that are irrelevant to the question posed by the OP. (You are also making some misstatements -- commissions are the same on deep ITM options as they are on ATM options.) A deep ITM call should have the same IV as the deep OTM put at the same strike, by put-call parity. We expect IV to be bigger for far OTM and far ITM options than for ATM options due to the fact that real price returns have fatter tails than a normal curve. So the OP was asking why he was seeing some deep ITM call with lower IV than the ATM options. As dmo pointed out deep ITM options are illiquid and have wide bid/ask spreads, so the "price" upon which the IV is calculated is often inaccurate. The puts at the same strike will give a more accurate measure of IV.