Download or read book An Examination on the Roles of Diffusions and Stochastic Volatility in the Exponential Levy Jumps Models written by Elton Daal and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent studies have shown that stochastic volatility in a continuous-time framework provides an excellent fit for financial asset returns when combined with finite-activity Merton's type compound Poisson Jump-diffusion models. However, we demonstrate that stochastic volatility does not play a central role when incorporated with infinite-activity Leacute;vy type pure jump models such as variance-gamma and normal inverse Gaussian processes to model high and low frequency historical time-series SP500 index returns. In addition, whether sources of stochastic volatility are diffusions or jumps are not relevant to improve the overall empirical fits of returns. Nevertheless, stochastic diffusion volatility with infinite-activity Levy jumps processes considerably reduces SP500 index call option in-sample and out-of-sample pricing errors of long-term ATM and OTM options, which contributed to a substantial improvement of pricing performances of SVJ and EVGSV models, compared to constant volatility Levy-type pure jumps models and/or stochastic volatility model without jumps. Interestingly, unlike asset returns, whether pure Levy jumps specifications are finite or infinite activity is not an important factor to enhance option pricing model performances once stochastic volatility is incorporated. Option prices are computed via improved Fast Fourier Transform algorithm using characteristic functions to match arbitrary log-strike grids with equal intervals with each moneyness and maturity of actual market option prices considered in this paper.