Download or read book Three Essays on the Information Content of Stock Options written by Zekun Wu and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays that explore the information content embedded in equity options. The results improve our understanding of the cross-section of option returns, informed trading in the options market, and the industry effect of IPOs. In the first essay, we study the relation between option-implied skewness (IS) and the crosssection of option returns under daily hedging to better understand skewness pricing in isolation from lower moments. Creating portfolios of delta-hedged (D-hedged) and delta-vega-hedged (DV-hedged) options with daily rebalancing, we find that IS is negatively (positively) related to call (put) option returns, but the relation to put options is statistically significant only during economic recessions. The relation is more substantial when the underlying stock has a larger market beta and when the firm has more severe information opacity. Our results suggest that investors' skewness preference grows stronger with greater market risk and lower information quality. In the second essay, we examined the informed trading in the options market before FDA drug advisory committee meetings. We find significant abnormal options trading volume before both meeting dates and report creation dates, particularly for small drug firms. Abnormal volume significantly predicts post-meeting stock returns. Informed traders prefer out-of-the-money options and choose maturities to cover the dates when reports are publicly released. They prefer to sell options close to the meeting date, perhaps to capture returns from both expected stock price changes and the sharp drop in implied volatility post-meeting. In the third essay, I investigate the effect of initial public offerings (IPOs) on industry competitors' options market. I find that rival firms' put (call) options volume increases (decreases) around IPOs, leading to price pressure on call options relative to put options as measured by the implied volatility spread. Rival firms' reaction in the options market also predicts the IPO firms' post-IPO stock performance. Lastly, rival firms with strong operating income experience less negative impact in the options market, suggesting competitive operation performance help stabilize rival firms' options market around IPOs.