The Information Content of Canadian Implied Volatility Indexes

This book compares the efficacy of Black-Scholes implied volatility with model-free implied volatility in providing volatility forecasts in the framework of Canadian S&P/TSX 60 stock index option. In-sample volatility forecasts show that both MVX and VIXC significantly improve the fit of a GJR-GARCH(1,1) model. However, VIXC dominates MVX for predicting future volatility. Out-of-sample volatility forecasts also indicate that VIXC outperforms MVX for the 1-, 5-, 10-, and 22-day forecasting horizons. we also investigate the predictive power between VIXC and alternative volatility forecasts derived from historical index prices.We find that for time horizons lesser than 10-trading days, VIXC provides more accurate forecasts. However, for longer time horizons, the historical volatilities, particularly the random walk, provide better forecasts.