Search

Given a finite set of European call option prices on a single underlying, we want to know when there is a market model which is consistent with these prices. In contrast to previous studies, we allow models where the underlying trades at a bid-ask spread. The main question then is how large (in terms of a deterministic bound) this spread must be to explain the given prices. We fully solve this problem in the case of a single maturity, and give several partial results for multiple maturities. For the latter, our main mathematical tool is a recent result on approximation by peacocks [S. Gerhold, I.C. G\"ul\"uum, arXiv:1512.06640].

A peacock is a family of probability measures with finite mean that increases in convex order. It is a classical result, in the discrete time case due to Strassen, that any peacock is the family of one-dimensional marginals of a martingale. We study the problem whether a given sequence of probability measures can be approximated by a peacock. In our main results, the approximation quality is measured by the infinity Wasserstein distance. Existence of a peacock within a prescribed distance is reduced to a countable collection of rather explicit conditions. This result has a financial application (developed in a separate paper), as it allows to check European call option quotes for consistency. The distance bound on the peacock than takes the role of a bound on the bid-ask spread of the underlying. We also solve the approximation problem for the stop-loss distance, the L\'evy distance, and the Prokhorov distance.

We consider the at-the-money strike derivative of implied volatility as the maturity tends to zero. Our main results quantify the behavior of the slope for infinite activity exponential L\'evy models including a Brownian component. As auxiliary results, we obtain asymptotic expansions of short maturity at-the-money digital call options, using Mellin transform asymptotics. Finally, we discuss when the at-the-money slope is consistent with the steepness of the smile wings, as given by Lee's moment formula.