Traded American options are Bermudan
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the importance of business time, and market opening/closing times and days, for American option pricing.
Design/methodology/approach
A Bermudan pricing approach is employed whereby the option can be exercised only during the times and days the market is open. The authors apply the approach to the S&P 100 options market.
Findings
It was found that the potential biases that can arise from ignoring the non‐continuous operation of the market are not negligible.
Research limitations/implications
For expositional purposes, the authors assume that the price of the underlying follows a Geometric Brownian motion. This assumption could be relaxed by future research and more complex price dynamics models could be considered.
Practical implications
The findings in this paper could be used in correcting observed option prices, prior to investigating the rationality of early exercise decisions, or in measuring the size of early exercise premia.
Originality/value
This is the first study to examine the effects of business time, and market opening/closing times and days, to American option prices.
Keywords
Citation
Kourtis, A. and Markellos, R.N. (2011), "Traded American options are Bermudan", Managerial Finance, Vol. 37 No. 11, pp. 978-984. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074351111167884
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited