Intraday information from S&P 500 Index futures options

Abstract In this paper, we employ the intraday transaction prices of liquid E-mini S&P 500 index futures options to form 10-min ahead risk-neutral skewness forecasts and show profitable options trading strategy net of transaction costs. We do not find profitable trading based on 10-min ahead risk-neutral volatility and only very marginal cases of profitable trading using kurtosis forecasts. The skewness profitability anomaly may be an indication of informational inefficiency in intraday S&P 500 futures options trading, which is contrary to findings using longer-span daily and weekly moments. Our results lend credence to the persistence of intraday trading activities in the markets.