The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.

AFA members can log in to view full-text articles below.

View past issues


Search the Journal of Finance:






Search results: 1.

Estimating the Volatility of Discrete Stock Prices

Published: 06/01/1988   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1988.tb03949.x

D. CHINHYUNG CHO, EDWARD W. FREES

This paper introduces an estimator of stock price volatility that eliminates, at least asymptotically, the biases that are caused by the discreteness of observed stock prices. Assuming that the observed stock prices are continuously monitored, an estimator is constructed using the notion of how quickly the price changes rather than how much the price changes. It is shown that this estimator has desirable asymptotic properties, including consistency and asymptotic normality. Also, through a simulation study, the authors show that it outperforms natural estimators for the low‐ and middle‐priced stocks. Furthermoret, he simulation study demonstratest hat the proposed estimator is robust to certain misspecifications in measuring the time between price changes.