CHAPTER 9
Measuring Option Risk
This chapter looks at how options behave in response to changes in market conditions and the main issues that a market maker in options must consider when writing the contracts. It also reviews “the Greeks”—the sensitivity measures applied to option books—and an important set of interest rate options: caps and floors.
Option Price Behavior
As noted in Chapter 8, the value of an option is a function of five factors:
• The price of the underlying asset
• The option’s strike price
• The option’s time to expiry
• The volatility of the underlying asset’s price returns
• The risk-free interest rate applicable to the life of the option
The price of an option is composed of intrinsic value and time value. An option’s intrinsic ...