The Hazards of Volatility Diversification
ICMA Centre Discussion Paper in Finance No. DP2011-04
24 Pages Posted: 1 Feb 2011 Last revised: 8 Feb 2011
Date Written: February 4, 2011
Abstract
Recent research advocates volatility diversification for long equity investors. It can even be justified when short-term expected returns are highly negative, but only when its equilibrium return is ignored. Its advantages during stock market crises are clear but we show that the high transactions costs and negative carry and roll yield on volatility futures during normal periods would outweigh any benefits gained unless volatility trades are carefully timed. Our analysis highlights the difficulty of predicting when volatility diversification is optimal. Hence insitutional investors should be sceptical of studies that extol its benefits. Volatility is better left to experienced traders such as speculators, vega hedgers and hedge funds.
Keywords: Black-Litterman Model, Institutional Investors, Mean-Variance Criterion, Optimal Asset Allocation, SPY ETF, VIX Futures
JEL Classification: G11, G15, G23
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
The Tactical and Strategic Value of Commodity Futures
By Claude B. Erb and Campbell R. Harvey
-
The Tactical and Strategic Value of Commodity Futures
By Claude B. Erb and Campbell R. Harvey
-
The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices: Small Trends and Big Variability
-
The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns
By Gary B. Gorton, Fumio Hayashi, ...
-
The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns
By Gary B. Gorton, Fumio Hayashi, ...
-
Momentum Strategies in Commodity Futures Markets
By Joëlle Miffre and Georgios Rallis