Extracting Information on Implied Volatilities and Discrete Dividends from American Option Prices

This contribution deals with options on assets which pay cash dividends. Pricing methods which consider discrete dividends are usually computationally expensive; a first purpose of this paper is to study efficient and accurate numerical procedures which yield consistent prices for both European and American options in the presence of discrete dividends. We then analyze some methodologies to extract information on volatilities and dividends from observable option prices. Implied dividends can also be computed using a modified version of the well known put-call parity relationship. This technique is straightforward, nevertheless, its use is limited to European options and, when dealing with equities, most traded options are of American-type. As an alternative, numerical inversion of pricing methods can be used. We apply different procedures to obtain implied volatilities and dividends of listed stocks of the Italian Derivatives Market.

This paper deals with options on assets, such as stocks or indexes, which pay cash dividends. Pricing methods that consider discrete dividends are usually computationally expensive and become infeasible when one considers multiple dividends paid during the option lifetime. This is the case of long-term options and options on indexes. The first purpose of this paper is to assess efficient and accurate numerical procedures which yield consistent prices for both European and American options when the underlying asset pays discrete dividends. The authors then analyze some methodologies to extract information on implied volatilities and dividends from quoted option prices. Implied dividends can also be computed using a modified version of the well-known put-call parity relationship. This technique is straightforward, nevertheless, its use is limited to European options, and when dealing with equities, most traded options are of American type. As an alternative, the numerical inversion of pricing methods, such as the efficient interpolated binomial method, can be used. This paper applies different procedures to obtain implied volatilities and dividends of listed stocks of the Italian derivatives market (IDEM).