Why We Have Never Used the Black-Scholes-Merton Option Pricing Formula

Espen Gaarder Haug & Nassim Nicholas Taleb

November 2007- Third Version

Abstract: Options traders use a pricing formula which they adapt by fudging
and changing the tails and skewness by varying one parameter, the standard
deviation of a Gaussian. Such formula is popularly called “Black-Scholes-Merton”
owing to an attributed eponymous discovery (though changing the standard
deviation parameter is in contradiction with it). However we have historical
evidence that 1) Black, Scholes and Merton did not invent any formula, just
found an argument to make a well known (and used) formula compatible with
the economics establishment, by removing the “risk” parameter through
“dynamic hedging”, 2) Option traders use (and evidently have used since 1902)
heuristics and tricks more compatible with the previous versions of the formula
of Louis Bachelier and Edward O. Thorp (that allow a broad choice of probability
distributions) and removed the risk parameter by using put-call parity. The
Bachelier-Thorp approach is more robust (among other things) to the high
impact rare event. It is time to stop calling the formula by the wrong name. The
paper draws on historical trading methods and 19th and early 20th century
references ignored by the finance literature.

down (and used) by Edward Thorp which,

BREAKING THE CHAIN OF TRANSMISSION paradoxically, while being robust and realistic, has been
considered unrigorous. This raises the following: 1) The
Black Scholes Merton was just a neoclassical finance
Option hedging, pricing, and trading is neither
argument, no more than a thought experiment1, 2) We
philosophy nor mathematics. It is a rich craft with
are not aware of traders using their argument or their
traders learning from traders (or traders copying other
version of the formula.
traders) and tricks developing under evolution
pressures, in a bottom-up manner. It is technë, not It is high time to give credit where it belongs.
ëpistemë. Had it been a science it would not have
survived – for the empirical and scientific fitness of the THE BLACK-SCHOLES-MERTON “FORMULA” WAS AN
pricing and hedging theories offered are, we will see, at ARGUMENT
best, defective and unscientific (and, at the worst, the
hedging methods create more risks than they reduce).
Option traders call the formula they use the “Black-
Our approach in this paper is to ferret out historical
Scholes-Merton” formula without being aware that by
evidence of technë showing how option traders went
some irony, of all the possible options formulas that
about their business in the past.
have been produced in the past century, what is called
Options, we will show, have been extremely active in the Black-Scholes-Merton “formula” (after Black and
the pre-modern finance world. Tricks and heuristically Scholes, 1973, and Merton, 1973) is the one the
derived methodologies in option trading and risk furthest away from what they are using. In fact of the
management of derivatives books have been developed formulas written down in a long history it is the only
over the past century, and used quite effectively by formula that is fragile to jumps and tail events.
operators. In parallel, many derivations were produced
First, something seems to have been lost in translation:
by mathematical researchers. The economics literature,
Black and Scholes (1973) and Merton (1973) actually
however, did not recognize these contributions,
substituting the rediscoveries or subsequent
reformulations done by (some) economists. There is 1 Here we question the notion of confusing thought
evidence of an attribution problem with Black-Scholes- experiments in a hypothetical world, of no predictive power,
Merton option “formula”, which was developed, used, with either science or practice. The fact that the Black-Scholes-
and adapted in a robust way by a long tradition of Merton argument works in a Platonic world and appears to be
researchers and used heuristically by option book “elegant” does not mean anything since one can always
runners. Furthermore, in a case of scientific puzzle, the produce a Platonic world in which a certain equation works, or
in which a “rigorous” proof can be provided, a process called
exact formula called “Black-Sholes-Merton” was written reverse-engineering.
never came up with a new option formula, but only an they actually used –we were told so. This myth has
theoretical economic argument built on a new way of been progressively reinforced in the literature and in
“deriving”, rather rederiving, an already existing –and business schools, as the original sources have been lost
well known –formula. The argument, we will see, is or frowned upon as “anecdotal” (Merton, 1992).
extremely fragile to assumptions. The foundations of
option hedging and pricing were already far more firmly
laid down before them. The Black-Scholes-Merton
argument, simply, is that an option can be hedged
using a certain methodology called “dynamic hedging”
and then turned into a risk-free instrument, as the
portfolio would no longer be stochastic. Indeed what
Black, Scholes and Merton did was “marketing”, finding
a way to make a well-known formula palatable to the
economics establishment of the time, little else, and in
fact distorting its essence.
Such argument requires strange far-fetched
assumptions: some liquidity at the level of transactions,
knowledge of the probabilities of future events (in a Figure 1 The typical "risk reduction" performed
neoclassical Arrow-Debreu style)2, and, more critically, by the Black-Scholes-Merton argument. These
a certain mathematical structure that requires “thin- are the variations of a dynamically hedged
tails”, or mild randomness, on which, later. The entire portfolio. BSM indeed "smoothes" out risks but
argument is indeed, quite strange and rather exposes the operator to massive tail events –
inapplicable for someone clinically and observation- reminiscent of such blowups as LTCM. Other
driven standing outside conventional neoclassical option formulas are robust to the rare event and
economics. Simply, the dynamic hedging argument is make no such claims.
dangerous in practice as it subjects you to blowups; it
makes no sense unless you are concerned with
neoclassical economic theory. The Black-Scholes- This discussion will present our real-world, ecological
Merton argument and equation flow a top-down understanding of option pricing and hedging based on
general equilibrium theory, built upon the assumptions what option traders actually do and did for more than a
of operators working in full knowledge of the probability hundred years.
distribution of future outcomes –in addition to a
collection of assumptions that, we will see, are highly This is a very general problem. As we said, option
invalid mathematically, the main one being the ability to traders develop a chain of transmission of technë, like
cut the risks using continuous trading which only works many professions. But the problem is that the “chain” is
in the very narrowly special case of thin-tailed often broken as universities do not store the acquired
distributions. But it is not just these flaws that make it skills by operators. Effectively plenty of robust
inapplicable: option traders do not “buy theories”, heuristically derived implementations have been
particularly speculative general equilibrium ones, which developed over the years, but the economics
they find too risky for them and extremely lacking in establishment has refused to quote them or
standards of reliability. A normative theory is, simply, acknowledge them. This makes traders need to relearn
not good for decision-making under uncertainty matters periodically. Failure of dynamic hedging in
(particularly if it is in chronic disagreement with 1987, by such firm as Leland O’Brien Rubinstein, for
empirical evidence). People may take decisions based instance, does not seem to appear in the academic
on speculative theories, but avoid the fragility of literature published after the event 3 (Merton, 1992,
theories in running their risks. Rubinstein, 1998, Ross, 2005); to the contrary dynamic
hedging is held to be a standard operation4.
Yet professional traders, including the authors (and,
alas, the Nobel committee) have operated under the There are central elements of the real world that can
illusion that it was the Black-Scholes-Merton “formula” escape them –academic research without feedback
from practice (in a practical and applied field) can cause
the diversions we witness between laboratory and
2 Of all the misplaced assumptions of Black Scholes that
ecological frameworks. This explains why some many
cause it to be a mere thought experiment, though an extremely
elegant one, a flaw shared with modern portfolio theory, is the
certain knowledge of future delivered variance for the random 3 For instance –how mistakes never resurface into the

variable (or, equivalently, all the future probabilities). This is consciousness, Mark Rubinstein was awarded in 1995 the
what makes it clash with practice –the rectification by the Financial Engineer of the Year award by the International
market fattening the tails is a negation of the Black-Scholes Association of Financial Engineers. There was no mention of
thought experiment. portfolio insurance and the failure of dynamic hedging.

© Copyright 2007 by N. N. Taleb.

finance academics have had the tendency to make parity can suffice (Derman and Taleb, 2005), as we will
smooth returns, then blow up using their own theories5. discuss later. And it is this central removal of the “risk-
We started the other way around, first by years of premium” that apparently was behind the decision by
option trading doing million of hedges and thousands of the Nobel committee to grant Merton and Scholes the
option trades. This in combination with investigating (then called) Bank of Sweden Prize in Honor of Alfred
the forgotten and ignored ancient knowledge in option Nobel: “Black, Merton and Scholes made a vital
pricing and trading we will explain some common contribution by showing that it is in fact not necessary
myths about option pricing and hedging. to use any risk premium when valuing an option. This
does not mean that the risk premium disappears;
There are indeed two myths:
instead it is already included in the stock price.”6 It is
• That we had to wait for the Black-Scholes- for having removed the effect of the drift on the value
Merton options formula to trade the product, of the option, using a thought experiment, that their
price options, and manage option books. In work was originally cited, something that was
fact the introduction of the Black, Scholes and mechanically present by any form of trading and
Merton argument increased our risks and set converting using far simpler techniques.
us back in risk management. More generally, it
Options have a much richer history than shown in the
is a myth that traders rely on theories, even
conventional literature. Forward contracts seems to
less a general equilibrium theory, to price
date all the way back to Mesopotamian clay tablets
options.
dating all the way back to 1750 B.C. Gelderblom and
• That we “use” the Black-Scholes-Merton Jonker (2003) show that Amsterdam grain dealers had
options “pricing formula”. We, simply don’t. used options and forwards already in 1550.

In our discussion of these myth we will focus on the In the late 1800 and the early 1900 there were active
bottom-up literature on option theory that has been option markets in London and New York as well as in
hidden in the dark recesses of libraries. And that Paris and several other European exchanges. Markets it
addresses only recorded matters –not the actual seems, were active and extremely sophisticated option
practice of option trading that has been lost. markets in 1870. Kairys and Valerio (1997) discuss the
market for equity options in USA in the 1870s, indirectly
MYTH 1: PEOPLE DID NOT PROPERLY “PRICE” OPTIONS showing that traders were sophisticated enough to
BEFORE THE BLACK-SCHOLES-MERTON THEORY
price for tail events7.
There was even active option arbitrage trading taking
It is assumed that the Black-Scholes-Merton theory is place between some of these markets. There is a long
what made it possible for option traders to calculate list of missing treatises on option trading: we traced at
their delta hedge (against the underlying) and to price least ten German treatises on options written between
options. This argument is highly debatable, both the late 1800s and the hyperinflation episode8.
historically and analytically.
Options were actively trading at least already in the
see www.Nobel.se
6
1600 as described by Joseph De La Vega –implying The historical description of the market is informative
7
some form of technë, a heuristic method to price them until Kairys and Valerio try to gauge whether options in the
and deal with their exposure. De La Vega describes 1870s were underpriced or overpriced (using Black-Scholes-
option trading in the Netherlands, indicating that Merton style methods). There was one tail-event in this period,
operators had some expertise in option pricing and the great panic of September 1873. Kairys and Valerio find that
holding puts was profitable, but deem that the market panic
hedging. He diffusely points to the put-call parity, and was just a one-time event :
his book was not even meant to teach people about the “However, the put contracts benefit from the “financial
technicalities in option trading. Our insistence on the panic” that hit the market in September, 1873. Viewing
use of Put-Call parity is critical for the following reason: this as a “one-time” event, we repeat the analysis for puts
The Black-Scholes-Merton’s claim to fame is removing excluding any unexpired contracts written before the stock
market panic.”
the necessity of a risk-based drift from the underlying Using references to the economic literature that also conclude
security –to make the trade “risk-neutral”. But one does that options in general were overpriced in the 1950s 1960s and
not need dynamic hedging for that: simple put call 1970s they conclude: "Our analysis shows that option
contracts were generally overpriced and were unattractive for
retail investors to purchase”. They add: ”Empirically we find
5 For a standard reaction to a rare event, see the following:
that both put and call options were regularly overpriced
"Wednesday is the type of day people will remember in quant- relative to a theoretical valuation model."
land for a very long time," said Mr. Rothman, a University of These results are contradicted by the practitioner Nelson
Chicago Ph.D. who ran a quantitative fund before joining (1904): “…the majority of the great option dealers who have
Lehman Brothers. "Events that models only predicted would found by experience that it is the givers, and not the takers, of
happen once in 10,000 years happened every day for three option money who have gained the advantage in the long run”.
days." One 'Quant' Sees Shakeout For the Ages -- '10,000
8
Years' By Kaja Whitehouse, August 11, 2007; Page B3. Here is a partial list:

© Copyright 2007 by N. N. Taleb.

One informative extant source, Nelson (1904), speaks The Put-and-Call was simply a put plus a call with the
volumes: An option trader and arbitrageur, S.A. Nelson same strike and maturity, what we today would call a
published a book “The A B C of Options and Arbitrage” straddle. Nelson describes the put-call parity over many
based on his observations around the turn o the pages in full detail. Static market neutral delta hedging
twentieth century. According to Nelson (1904) up to was also known at that time, in his book Nelson for
500 messages per hour and typically 2000 to 3000 example writes:
messages per day where sent between the London and
“Sellers of options in London as a result of long
the New York market through the cable companies. experience, if they sell a Call, straightway buy half
Each message was transmitted over the wire system in the stock against which the Call is sold; or if a Put is
less than a minute. In a heuristic method that was sold; they sell half the stock immediately.”
repeated in Dynamic Hedging by one of the authors,
(Taleb,1997), Nelson, describe in a theory-free way We must interpret the value of this statement in the
many rigorously clinical aspects of his arbitrage light that standard options in London at that time were
business: the cost of shipping shares, the cost of issued at-the-money (as explicitly pointed out by
insuring shares, interest expenses, the possibilities to Nelson); furthermore, all standard options in London
switch shares directly between someone being long were European style. In London in- or out-of-the-
securities in New York and short in London and in this money options where only traded occasionally and
way saving shipping and insurance costs, as well as where known as “fancy options”. It is quite clear from
many more tricks etc. this and the rest of Nelson’s book that that the option
dealers where well aware of the delta for at-the-money
The formal financial economics canon does not include options was approximately 50%. As a matter of fact at-
historical sources from outside economics, a mechanism the-money options trading in London at that time were
discussed in Taleb (2007a). The put-call parity was adjusted to be struck to be at-the-money forward, in
according to the formal option literature first fully order to make puts and calls of the same price. We
described by Stoll (1969), but neither he not others in know today know that options that are at-the-money
the field even mention Nelson. Not only was the put- forward and not have very long time to maturity have a
call parity argument fully understood and described in delta very close to 50% (naturally minus 50% for puts).
detail by Nelson (1904), but he, in turn, makes frequent The options in London at that time typically had one
reference to Higgins (1902). Just as an example Nelson month to maturity when issued.
(1904) referring to Higgins (1902) writes:
Nelson also diffusely points to dynamic delta hedging,
“It may be worthy of remark that ‘calls’ are more and that it worked better in theory than practice (see
often dealt than ‘puts’ the reason probably being Haug, 2007). It is clearly from all the details described
that the majority of ‘punters’ in stocks and shares
by Nelson that options in the early 1900 traded actively
are more inclined to look at the bright side of things,
and therefore more often ‘see’ a rise than a fall in
and that option traders at that time in no way felt
prices. helpless in either pricing or in hedging them.

This special inclination to buy ‘calls’ and to leave the Herbert Filer was another option trader that was
‘puts’ severely alone does not, however, tend to involved in option trading from 1919 to the 1960s.
make ‘calls’ dear and ‘puts’ cheap, for it can be Filler(1959) describes what must be consider a
shown that the adroit dealer in options can convert reasonable active option market in New York and
a ‘put’ into a ‘call,’ a ‘call’ into a ‘put’, a ‘call o’ more’ Europe in the early 1920s and 1930s. Filer mention
into a ‘put- and-call,’ in fact any option into another,
however that due to World War II there was no trading
by dealing against it in the stock. We may therefore
assume, with tolerable accuracy, that the ‘call’ of a
on the European Exchanges, for they were closed.
stock at any moment costs the same as the ‘put’ of Further, he mentions that London option trading did not
that stock, and half as much as the Put-and-Call.” resume before 1958. In the early 1900, option traders
in London were considered to be the most
sophisticated, according to Nelson. It could well be that
Bielschowsky, R (1892): Ueber die rechtliche Natur der World War II and the subsequent shutdown of option
Prämiengeschäfte, Bresl. Genoss.-Buchdr trading for many years was the reason known robust
Granichstaedten-Czerva, R (1917): Die Prämiengeschäfte arbitrage principles about options were forgotten and
an der Wiener Börse, Frankfurt am Main almost lost, to be partly re-discovered by finance
Holz, L. (1905) Die Prämiengeschäfte, Thesis (doctoral)--
Universität Rostock professors such as Stoll (1969).
Kitzing, C. (1925): Prämiengeschäfte : Vorprämien-, Earlier, in 1908, Vinzenz Bronzin published a book
Rückprämien-, Stellagen- u. Nochgeschäfte ; Die solidesten
Spekulationsgeschäfte mit Versicherg auf Kursverlust, Berlin deriving several option pricing formulas, and a formula
Leser, E, (1875): Zur Geschichte der Prämiengeschäfte very similar to what today is known as the Black-
Szkolny, I. (1883): Theorie und praxis der Scholes-Merton formula. Bronzin based his risk-neutral
prämiengeschäfte nach einer originalen methode dargestellt., option valuation on robust arbitrage principles such as
Frankfurt am Main the put-call parity and the link between the forward
Author Unknown (1925): Das Wesen der
Prämiengeschäfte, Berlin : Eugen Bab & Co., Bankgeschäft price and call and put options –in a way that was

© Copyright 2007 by N. N. Taleb.

rediscovered by Derman and Taleb (2005)9. Indeed, the where able to hedge options more robustly than with
put-call parity restriction is sufficient to remove the Black- Scholes-Merton. As already mentioned static
need to incorporate a future return in the underlying market-neutral delta hedging was described by Higgins
security –it forces the lining up of options to the and Nelson in 1902 and 1904. Also, W. D. Gann (1937)
forward price10. discusses market neutral delta hedging for at-the-
money options, but in much less details than Nelson
Again, 1910 Henry Deutsch describes put-call parity but
(1904). Gann also indicates some forms of auxiliary
in less detail than Higgins and Nelson. In 1961 Reinach
dynamic hedging.
again described the put-call parity in quite some detail
(another text typically ignored by academics). Traders Mills (1927) illustrates how jumps and fat tails were
at New York stock exchange specializing in using the present in the literature in the pre-Modern Portfolio
put-call parity to convert puts into calls or calls into Theory days. He writes: ”A distribution may depart
puts was at that time known as Converters. Reinach widely from the Gaussian type because the influence of
(1961): one or two extreme price change.”
“Although I have no figures to substantiate my
claim, I estimate that over 60 per cent of all Option Formulas and Delta Hedging
Calls are made possible by the existence of
Converters.” Which brings us to option pricing formulas. The first
identifiable one was Bachelier (1900). Sprenkle (1962)
In other words the converters (dealers) who basically extended Bacheliers work to assume lognormal rather
operated as market makers were able to operate and than normal distributed asset price. It also avoids
hedge most of their risk by “statically” hedging options discounting (to no significant effect since many
with options. Reinach wrote that he was an option markets, particularly the U.S., option premia were paid
trader (Converter) and gave examples on how he and at expiration).
his colleagues tended to hedge and arbitrage options
against options by taking advantage of options James Boness (1964) also assumed a lognormal asset
embedded in convertible bonds: price. He derives a formula for the price of a call
option that is actually identical to the Black-Scholes-
“Writers and traders have figured out other Merton 1973 formula, but the way Black, Scholes and
procedures for making profits writing Puts & Merton derived their formula based on continuous
Calls. Most are too specialized for all but the dynamic delta hedging or alternatively based on CAPM
seasoned professional. One such procedure is they were able to get independent of the expected rate
the ownership of a convertible bonds and then of return. It is in other words not the formula itself that
writing of Calls against the stock into which the is considered the great discovery done by Black,
bonds are convertible. If the stock is called Scholes and Merton, but how they derived it. This is
converted and the stock is delivered.” among several others also pointed out by Rubinstein
Higgins, Nelson and Reinach all describe the great (2006):
importance of the put-call parity and to hedge options “The real significance of the formula to the
with options. Option traders where in no way helpless financial theory of investment lies not in itself,
in hedging or pricing before the Black-Scholes-Merton but rather in how it was derived. Ten years
formula. Based on simple arbitrage principles they earlier the same formula had been derived by
Case M. Sprenkle (1962) and A. James Boness
(1964).”
9 The argument Derman Taleb(2005) was present in Taleb

(1997) but remained unnoticed. Samuelson (1969) and Thorp (1969) published
10 Ruffino and Treussard (2006) accept that one could
somewhat similar option pricing formulas to Boness and
have solved the risk-premium by happenstance, not realizing Sprenkle. Thorp (2007) claims that he actually had an
that put-call parity was so extensively used in history. But they
find it insufficient. Indeed the argument may not be sufficient identical formula to the Black-Scholes-Merton formula
for someone who subsequently complicated the representation programmed into his computer years before Black,
of the world with some implements of modern finance such as Scholes and Merton published their theory.
“stochastic discount rates” –while simplifying it at the same
time to make it limited to the Gaussian and allowing dynamic Now, delta hedging. As already mentioned static
hedging. They write that “the use of a non-stochastic discount market-neutral delta hedging was clearly described by
rate common to both the call and the put options is Higgins and Nelson 1902 and 1904. Thorp and Kassouf
inconsistent with modern equilibrium capital asset pricing (1967) presented market neutral static delta hedging in
theory.” Given that we have never seen a practitioner use
“stochastic discount rate”, we, like our option trading more details, not only for at-the-money options, but for
predecessors, feel that put-call parity is sufficient & does the options with any delta. In his 1969 paper Thorp is
job. shortly describing market neutral static delta hedging,
The situation is akin to that of scientists lecturing birds on also briefly pointed in the direction of some dynamic
how to fly, and taking credit for their subsequent performance delta hedging, not as a central pricing device, but a
–except that here it would be lecturing them the wrong way.

© Copyright 2007 by N. N. Taleb.

risk-management tool. Filer also points to dynamic expensive that twice the price of a call struck at K+∆K
hedging of options, but without showing much (negative butterflies), horizontal calendar spreads
knowledge about how to calculate the delta. Another cannot be negative (when interest rates are low), and
“ignored” and “forgotten” text is a book/booklet so forth. The degrees of freedom for traders are thus
published in 1970 by Arnold Bernhard & Co. The reduced: they need to abide by put-call parity and
authors are clearly aware of market neutral static delta compatibility with other options in the market.
hedging or what they name “balanced hedge” for any
In that sense, traders do not perform “valuation” with
level in the strike or asset price. This book has multiple
some “pricing kernel” until the expiration of the
examples of how to buy warrants or convertible bonds
security, but, rather, produce a price of an option
and construct a market neutral delta hedge by shorting
compatible with other instruments in the markets, with
the right amount of common shares. Arnold Bernhard &
a holding time that is stochastic. They do not need top-
Co also published deltas for a large number of warrants
down “science”.
and convertible bonds that they distributed to investors
on Wall Street.
When do we value?
Referring to Thorp and Kassouf (1967), Black, Scholes
and Merton took the idea of delta hedging one step If you find traders operated solo, in a desert island,
further, Black and Scholes (1973): having for some to produce an option price and hold it
“If the hedge is maintained continuously, then the to expiration, in a market in which the forward is
approximations mentioned above become exact, and absent, then some valuation would be necessary –but
the return on the hedged position is completely then their book would be minuscule. And this thought
independent of the change in the value of the stock. In experiment is a distortion: people would not trade
fact, the return on the hedged position becomes options unless they are in the business of trading
certain. This was pointed out to us by Robert Merton.” options, in which case they would need to have a book
This may be a brilliant mathematical idea, but option with offsetting trades. For without offsetting trades, we
trading is not mathematical theory. It is not enough to doubt traders would be able to produce a position
have a theoretical idea so far removed from reality that beyond a minimum (and negligible) size as dynamic
is far from robust in practice. What is surprising is that hedging not possible. (Again we are not aware of many
the only principle option traders do not use and cannot non-blownup option traders and institutions who have
use is the approach named after the formula, which is a managed to operate in the vacuum of the Black
point we discuss next. Scholes-Merton argument). It is to the impossibility of
such hedging that we turn next.
MYTH 2: OPTION TRADERS TODAY “USE” THE BLACK-
SCHOLES-MERTON FORMULA On the Mathematical Impossibility of
Dynamic Hedging
Traders don’t do “Valuation”
Finally, we discuss the severe flaw in the dynamic
hedging concept. It assumes, nay, requires all moments
First, operationally, a price is not quite “valuation”.
of the probability distribution to exist11.
Valuation requires a strong theoretical framework with
its corresponding fragility to both assumptions and the Assume that the distribution of returns has a scale-free
structure of a model. For traders, a “price” produced to or fractal property that we can simplify as follows: for x
buy an option when one has no knowledge of the large enough, (i.e. “in the tails”), P[X>n x]/P[X>x]
probability distribution of the future is not “valuation”, depends on n, not on x. In financial securities, say,
but an expedient. Such price could change. Their where X is a daily return, there is no reason for
beliefs do not enter such price. It can also be P[X>20%]/P[X>10%] to be different from
determined by his inventory. P[X>15%]/P[X>7.5%]. This self-similarity at all scales
generates power-law, or Paretian, tails, i.e., above a
This distinction is critical: traders are engineers,
crossover point, P[X>x]=K x-α. It happens, looking at
whether boundedly rational (or even non interested in
any form of probabilistic rationality), they are not privy millions of pieces of data, that such property holds in
to informational transparency about the future states of markets –all markets, baring sample error. For
the world and their probabilities. So they do not need a overwhelming empirical evidence, see Mandelbrot
(1963), which predates Black-Scholes-Merton (1973)
general theory to produce a price –merely the
avoidance of Dutch-book style arbitrages against them,
and the compatibility with some standard restriction: In
11 Merton (1992) seemed to accept the inapplicability of
addition to put-call parity, a call of a certain strike K
cannot trade at a lower price than a call K+∆K dynamic hedging but he perhaps thought that these ills would
be cured thanks to his prediction of the financial world
(avoidance of negative call and put spreads), a call “spiraling towards dynamic completeness”. Fifteen years later,
struck at K and a call struck at K+2 ∆K cannot be more we have, if anything, spiraled away from it.

© Copyright 2007 by N. N. Taleb.

and the jump-diffusion of Merton (1976); see also
Stanley et al. (2000), and Gabaix et al. (2003). The
argument to assume the scale-free is as follows: the Taking expectations on both sides, we can see here
distribution might have thin tails at some point (say very strict requirements on moment finiteness: all
above some value of X). But we do not know where moments need to converge. If we include another term,
such point is –we are epistemologically in the dark as to of order ∆S3, such term may be of significance in a
where to put the boundary, which forces us to use probability distribution with significant cubic or quartic
infinity. terms. Indeed, although the nth derivative with respect
to S can decline very sharply, for options that have a
Some criticism of these “true fat-tails” accept that such strike K away from the center of the distribution, it
property might apply for daily returns, but, owing to the remains that the delivered higher orders of ∆S are
Central Limit Theorem, the distribution is held to rising disproportionately fast for that to carry a
become Gaussian under aggregation for cases in which mitigating effect on the hedges.
α is deemed higher than 2. However the argument
So here we mean all moments--no approximation. The
does not hold owing to the preasymptotics of scalable
logic of the Black-Scholes-Merton so-called solution
distributions: Bouchaud and Potters (2003) and
thanks to Ito's lemma was that the portfolio collapses
Mandelbrot and Taleb (2007) argue that the
into a deterministic payoff. But let us see how quickly
presasymptotics of fractal distributions are such that
or effectively this works in practice.
the effect of the Central Limit Theorem are exceedingly
slow in the tails –in fact irrelevant. Furthermore, there The Actual Replication process is as follows: The payoff
is sampling error as we have less data for longer of a call should be replicated with the following stream
periods, hence fewer tail episodes, which give an in- of dynamic hedges, the limit of which can be seen here,
sample illusion of thinner tails. In addition, the point between t and T
that aggregation thins out the tails does not hold for
dynamic hedging –in which the operator depends
necessarily on high frequency data and their statistical
properties. So long as it is scale-free at the time period
of dynamic hedge, higher moments become explosive,
“infinite” to disallow the formation of a dynamically
hedge portfolio. Simply a Taylor expansion is impossible Such policy does not match the call value: the
as moments of higher order that 2 matter critically – difference remains stochastic (while according to Black
one of the moments is going to be infinite. Scholes it should shrink). Unless one lives in a fantasy
The mechanics of dynamic hedging are as follows. world in which such risk reduction is possible12.
Assume the risk-free interest rate of 0 with no loss of Further, there is an inconsistency in the works of
generality. The canonical Black-Scholes-Merton package Merton making us confused as to what theory finds
consists in selling a call and purchasing shares of stock acceptable: in Merton (1976) he agrees that we can
that provide a hedge against instantaneous moves in use Bachelier-style option derivation in the presence of
the security. Thus the portfolio π locally "hedged" jumps and discontinuities –no dynamic hedging– but
against exposure to the first moment of the distribution only when the underlying stock price is uncorrelated to
is the following: the market. This seems to be an admission that
dynamic hedging argument applies only to some
securities: those that do not jump and are correlated to
the market.
where C is the call price, and S the underlying security.
Take the discrete time change in the values of the
portfolio

By expanding around the initial values of S, we have

the changes in the portfolio in discrete time.
Conventional option theory applies to the Gaussian in
which all orders higher than ∆S2 and disappears rapidly. 12 We often hear the misplaced comparison to Newtonian

mechanics. It supposedly provided a good approximation until

we had relativity. The problem with the comparison is that the
thin-tailed distributions are not approximations for fat-tailed
ones: there is a deep qualitative difference.

© Copyright 2007 by N. N. Taleb.

 an arbitrage free volatility surface that evolves over
time.
In other words, you can use a volatility surface as a
map, not a territory. However it is foolish to justify
Black-Scholes-Merton on grounds of its use: we repeat
that the Gaussian bans the use of probability
distributions that are not Gaussian –whereas non-
dynamic hedging derivations (Bachelier, Thorp) are not
Figure 2 A 25% Gap in Ericsson, one of the Most grounded in the Gaussian.
Liquid Stocks in the World. Such move can
dominate hundreds of weeks of dynamic Order Flow and Options
hedging.
It is clear that option traders are not necessarily
The Robustness of the Gaussian interested in probability distribution at expiration time –
given that this is abstract, even metaphysical for them.
The success of the “formula” last developed by Thorp, In addition to the put-call parity constrains that
and called “Black-Scholes-Merton” was due to a simple according to evidence was fully developed already in
attribute of the Gaussian: you can express any 1904, we can hedge away inventory risk in options with
probability distribution in terms of Gaussian, even if it other options. One very important implication of this
has fat tails, by varying the standard deviation σ at the method is that if you hedge options with options then
option pricing will be largely demand and supply
level of the density of the random variable. It does not
mean that you are using a Gaussian, nor does it mean based14. This in strong contrast to the Black-Scholes-
that the Gaussian is particularly parsimonious (since Merton (1973) theory that based on the idealized world
of geometric Brownian motion with continuous-time
you have to attach a σ for every level of the price). It
delta hedging then demand and supply for options
simply mean that the Gaussian can express anything
simply not should affect the price of options. If
you want if you add a function for the parameter σ,
someone wants to buy more options the market makers
making it function of strike price and time to expiration.
can simply manufacture them by dynamic delta hedging
This “volatility smile”, i.e., varying one parameter to that will be a perfect substitute for the option itself.
produce σ(K), or “volatility surface”, varying two
This raises a critical point: option traders do not
parameter, σ(S,t) is effectively what was done in “estimate” the odds of rare events by pricing out-of-
different ways by Dupire(1994, 2005) and Derman the-money options. They just respond to supply and
(1994,1998), see Gatheral(2006). They assume a demand. The notion of “implied probability distribution”
volatility process not because there is necessarily such is merely a Dutch-book compatibility type of
a thing –only as a method of fitting option prices to a proposition.
Gaussian. Furthermore, although the Gaussian has
finite second moment (and finite all higher moments as
Bachelier-Thorp
well), you can express a scalable with infinite variance
using Gaussian “volatility surface”. One strong constrain
on the σ parameter is that it must be the same for a The argument often casually propounded attributing
the success of option volume to the quality of the Black
put and call with same strike (if both are European-
style), and the drift should be that of the forward13. Scholes formula is rather weak. It is particularly
weakened by the fact that options had been so
Indeed, ironically, the volatility smile is inconsistent successful at different time periods and places. One
with the Black-Scholes-Merton theory. This has lead to could easily attribute the explosion in option volume to
hundreds if not thousands of papers trying extend the computer age and the ease of processing
(what was perceived to be) the Black-Scholes-Merton transactions, added to the long stretch of peaceful
model to incorporate stochastic volatility and jump- economic growth and absence of hyperinflation. Once
diffusion. Several of these researchers have been again, lecturing birds how to fly does not allow one to
surprised that so few traders actually use stochastic take subsequent credit.
volatility models. It is not a model that says how the
We conclude with the following remark. Sadly, all the
volatility smile should look like, or evolves over time; it
equations, from the first (Bachelier), to the last pre-
is a hedging method that is robust and consistent with
Black-Scholes-Merton (Thorp) accommodate a scale-
free distribution. The notion of explicitly removing the
expectation from the forward was presented in Keynes
13 See Breeden and Litzenberberger (1978), Gatheral

(2006). See also Bouchaud and Potters (2001) for hedging

errors in the real world. 14 See Gârleanu, Pedersen, and Poteshman (2006).

© Copyright 2007 by N. N. Taleb.

(1924) and later by Blau (1944) –and long a Call short York: Wiley Publishing.
a put of the same strike equals a forward. These
Derman, Emanuel, and Iraj Kani (1994) “Riding on a
arbitrage relationships appeared to be well known in
smile”, Risk 7, 32–39.
1904.
Derman, Emanuel (1998), Stochastic implied trees:
This is why we call the equation Bachelier-Thorp. We
Arbitrage pricing with stochastic term and strike
were using it all along and gave it the wrong name,
structure of volatility, International Journal of
after the wrong method and with attribution to the
Theoretical and Applied Finance 1, 61–110.
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