Decomposing informed trading in equity options

Abstract

We develop a multi-asset model to decompose informed trading into the components concerning the underlying stock-value and the volatility in equity options. We isolate the stock-value and volatility components by characterizing their distinct intraday price responses in contracts with different option deltas and vegas, respectively. The stock-value (volatility) component represents on average 41 % (19 %) of the option spread, which remains substantial under various statistical validity analyses and robustness checks. In daily empirical applications, we also show that volatility-informed trading anticipates a 'Volmageddon' high-volatility event, and straddle trades are positively associated with volatility-informed trading.(Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, Division of Grants & Agreements, Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering, City University of New York