This book focuses on the impact of high-frequency data in forecasting market volatility and options price. New technologies have created opportunities to obtain better, faster, and more efficient datasets to explore financial market phenomena at the most acceptable data levels. It provides reliable intraday data supporting financial investment decisions across different assets classes and instruments consisting of commodities, derivatives, equities, fixed income and foreign exchange. This book emphasises four key areas, (1) estimating intraday implied volatility using ultra-high frequency (5-minutes frequency) currency options to capture traders' trading behaviour, (2) computing realised volatility based on 5-minute frequency currency price to obtain speculators' speculation attitude, (3) examining the ability of implied volatility to subsume market information through forecasting realised volatility and (4) evaluating the predictive power of implied volatility for pricing currency options. This is a must-read for academics and professionals who want to improve their skills and outcomes in trading options.

This book focuses on the impact of high-frequency data in forecasting market volatility and options price. New technologies have created opportunities to obtain better, faster, and more efficient datasets to explore financial market phenomena at the most acceptable data levels. It provides reliable intraday data supporting financial investment decisions across different assets classes and instruments consisting of commodities, derivatives, equities, fixed income and foreign exchange. This book emphasises four key areas, (1) estimating intraday implied volatility using ultra-high frequency (5-minutes frequency) currency options to capture traders' trading behaviour, (2) computing realised volatility based on 5-minute frequency currency price to obtain speculators' speculation attitude, (3) examining the ability of implied volatility to subsume market information through forecasting realised volatility and (4) evaluating the predictive power of implied volatility for pricing currency options. This is a must-read for academics and professionals who want to improve their skills and outcomes in trading options.

This book covers foreign exchange options from the point of view of the finance practitioner. It contains everything a quant or trader working in a bank or hedge fund would need to know about the mathematics of foreign exchange—not just the theoretical mathematics covered in other books but also comprehensive coverage of implementation, pricing and calibration. With content developed with input from traders and with examples using real-world data, this book introduces many of the more commonly requested products from FX options trading desks, together with the models that capture the risk characteristics necessary to price these products accurately. Crucially, this book describes the numerical methods required for calibration of these models – an area often neglected in the literature, which is nevertheless of paramount importance in practice. Thorough treatment is given in one unified text to the following features: Correct market conventions for FX volatility surface construction Adjustment for settlement and delayed delivery of options Pricing of vanillas and barrier options under the volatility smile Barrier bending for limiting barrier discontinuity risk near expiry Industry strength partial differential equations in one and several spatial variables using finite differences on nonuniform grids Fourier transform methods for pricing European options using characteristic functions Stochastic and local volatility models, and a mixed stochastic/local volatility model Three-factor long-dated FX model Numerical calibration techniques for all the models in this work The augmented state variable approach for pricing strongly path-dependent options using either partial differential equations or Monte Carlo simulation Connecting mathematically rigorous theory with practice, this is the essential guide to foreign exchange options in the context of the real financial marketplace.

Get the little known – yet crucial – facts about FX options Daily turnover in FX options is an estimated U.S. $ 207 billion, but many fundamental facts about this huge and liquid market are generally unknown. FX Option Performance provides the information practitioners need to be more effective in the market, with detailed, specific guidance. This book is a unique and practical guide to option trading, with the courage to report how much these contracts have really made or lost. Breaking free from the typical focus on theories and generalities, this book gets specific – travelling back in history to show exactly how options performed in different markets and thereby helping investors and hedgers alike make more informed decisions. Not overly technical, the rigorous approach remains accessible to anyone with an interest in the area, showing investors where to look for value and helping corporations hedge their FX exposures. FX Option Performance begins with a quick and practical introduction to the FX option market, then provides specific advice toward structures, performance, rate fluctuation, and trading strategies. Examine the historical payoffs to the most popular and liquidly traded options Learn which options are overvalued and which are undervalued Discover surprising, generally unpublished facts about emerging markets Examine systemic option trading strategies to find what works and what doesn't On average, do options result in profit, loss, or breaking even? How can corporations more cost-effectively hedge their exposure to emerging markets? Are cheap out-of-the-money options worth it?

This paper analyzes whether and how central banks can use currency options to lower exchange rate volatility and maintain (implicit) target zones in foreign exchange markets. It argues that selling rather than buying options will result in market makers dynamically hedging their long option exposure in a stabilizing manner, consistent with the first objective. Selling a “strangle” allows a central bank to increase the credibility of its commitment to a target zone, and could have a lower expected cost than spot market interventions. However, this strategy also exposes the central bank to an unlimited loss potential.

Written by a number of authors, this text is aimed at market practitioners and applies the latest stochastic volatility research findings to the analysis of stock prices. It includes commentary and analysis based on real-life situations.

A flexible instrument to insure against adverse exchange rate movements are options on foreign currency. Often a relatively simple foreign currency option valuation model is used to address issues related to the pricing and hedging of such options. The results of many empirical studies document that real-world foreign currency option premia deviate from those predicted by the baseline model. In the first part of the book, it is shown that a noise trader model can help to explain the observed mispricing of the baseline foreign currency option pricing model. In the second part of the book, it is studied how policymakers can exploit the pricing errors of the baseline model. In particular, it is examined how option pricing theory can be applied to assess the effectiveness of central bank interventions in the foreign exchange market. To this end, a model is constructed to analyze the effectiveness of the interventions conducted by the Deutsche Bundesbank during the Louvre period.