Volatility

Understanding Volatility Volatility is a critical factor in options pricing. It reflects the market's expectations of how much the underlying asset's price will move over a certain period. There are different types of volatility:

• Historical Volatility (HV): Actual past volatility of the underlying asset.

• Implied Volatility (IV): Market's forecast of future volatility, derived from option prices.

• Historical Implied Volatility (HIV): The historical levels of implied volatility.

• Implied Volatility Rank (IVR): Compares current IV to its range over the past 52 weeks.

• Implied Volatility Percentile (IVP): Shows the percentage of days over the past year when IV was lower than the current level.

Volatility Skew Volatility skew refers to the pattern that implied volatility takes across different strike prices. After the 1987 stock market crash, the volatility smile emerged, indicating higher IV for strike prices further from the money. Equity markets typically exhibit negative skew (higher IV for lower strikes), while commodities can show positive skew (higher IV for higher strikes).