Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden)

No 88: GARCH, Implied Volatilities and Implied Distributions: An Evaluation for Forecasting Purposes

Javiera Aguilar ()
Additional contact information
Javiera Aguilar: Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Sweden, Postal: Sveriges Riksbank, SE-103 37 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Volatility implied in option prices reflects the market participant's beliefs about future volatility and incorporates information that is not historical. Implied volatility is therefore widely believed to perform better as an indicator of future volatility than other forecasts based on historical time-series. In this study, I investigate the information content and predictive power of implied volatility from currency options traded on the OTC-market. Furthermore, I evaluate implied volatility both against other forecasts based on option prices and against volatility forecasts from models that are strictly historical by nature such as different GARCH models. I find that implied volatility has predictive power in forecasting future volatility, at least for shorter forecast horizons, although in most cases the forecasts are not unbiased. Furthermore, for some currencies GARCH volatility forecasts outperform implied volatility.

Keywords: Implied volatility; GARCH; Forecasting

JEL-codes: E50

20 pages, August 1, 1999

Full text files 

WP_88.pdf PDF-file

Download statistics

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Lena Löfgren ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0088This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:16:56.