Implied Volatility As A Price
Another way to look at implied volatility is to think of it as a price, not as a measure of future stock moves. In this view it simply is a more convenient way to communicate option prices than currency. Prices are different in nature from statistical quantities: one can estimate volatility of future underlying returns using any of a large number of estimation methods; however, the number one gets is not a price. A price requires two counterparties, a buyer and a seller. Prices are determined by supply and demand. Statistical estimates depend on the time-series and the mathematical structure of the model used. It is a mistake to confuse a price, which implies a transaction, with the result of a statistical estimation, which is merely what comes out of a calculation. Implied volatilities are prices: they have been derived from actual transactions. Seen in this light, it should not be surprising that implied volatilities might not conform to what a particular statistical model would predict.
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