Modern Economy, 2020, 11, 407-425 
https://www.scirp.org/journal/me 
ISSN Online: 2152-7261 
ISSN Print: 2152-7245 
 
 
 
Research on Pricing of Shanghai 50ETF Options 
Based on Fractal B-S Model and GARCH Model 
Wanting Hu 
School of Econmics, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China 
 
 
 
How to cite this paper: Hu, W. T. (2020). 
Research  on  Pricing  of  Shanghai  50ETF 
Options  Based  on  Fractal  B-S  Model  and 
GARCH  Model.  Modern Economy, 11, 
407-425. 
https://doi.org/10.4236/me.2020.112031 
 
Received: December 20, 2019 
Accepted: February 17, 2020 
Published: February 20, 2020 
 
Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and   
Scientific Research Publishing Inc. 
This work is licensed under the Creative 
Commons Attribution International   
License (CC BY 4.0). 
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access
 
 
Abstract 
A reasonable option trading price will have certain guiding significance for 
option  traders. Fractal  B-S  model  and  GARCH  model  are  common  pricing 
methods.  This  article  explores  which  pricing  method  is  more  reasonable 
based on SSE 50ETF options. Due to the spikes and thick tails, conditional 
heteroscedasticity, and fractal  characteristics of  the  SSE  50ETF  option  yield 
data, this paper performs stationary test, autocorrelation and partial autocor-
relation test, ARCH test, and Hurst test on the daily sample rate series of the 
target sample. The characteristics of the yield sequence are used to construct a 
GARCH model and predict the daily rate of volatility. Finally, the volatility 
predicted by the GARCH model is used as the parameter value in the fractal 
Brownian motion option pricing method to realize the option pricing. At the 
same time, this paper calculates the pricing results of the BS option pricing 
method based on historical volatility, and compares the two options pricing 
results with the closing price of the option transaction price. The results show 
that the prediction of the Shanghai Securities 50ETF option pricing method 
based on the GARCH fractal Brownian motion model. The accuracy is sig-
nificantly higher than the standard BS option pricing method. 
 
Keywords 
Fractal Brownian Motion, GARCH Model, SSE 50ETF Options, Volatility 
Prediction, Improved B-S European Option Pricing 
 
1. Introduction 
1.1. Background and Significance of Topic Selection 
The full name of the SSE 50 ETF is the SSE 50 Trading Open-end Index Securi-
ties Investment Fund, which was established on December 30, 2014, and is the 
first  ETF  product  in Mainland  China.  The  SSE  50ETF  is  a  completely  passive 
 
DOI: 10.4236/me.2020.112031    Feb. 20, 2020 
 
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W. T. Hu 
 
DOI: 10.4236/me.2020.112031 
 
 
index fund. It completely replicates the constituent stocks of the SSE 50 Index 
and the weight of each constituent stock. Its investment income comes from the 
SSE 50 Index. On February 9, 2015, the Shanghai Stock Exchange launched the 
Shanghai Securities 50ETF as the underlying trading option, namely the Shang-
hai  Securities  50ETF  option.  The  launch  of  this  option  has  not  only  enriched 
China’s financial derivative products, but also marked a key step in the devel-
opment of the option derivative market in China; it has also achieved a joint de-
velopment of the current market, improved the operating efficiency of the spot 
market,  and  further  enhanced  the  ability  to  serve  the  real  economy.  Option 
pricing is one of the important contents of modern financial theory. Reasona-
bly pricing options are the prerequisite for options to play their important role 
in  the  financial  market.  It  has  important  practical  significance  for  China  to 
further develop derivatives, avoid risks, and stabilize financial markets. How to 
effectively  establish  the  SSE  50ETF  option  pricing  model  is  also  an  important 
topic. 
Although  the  development  of  options  in  China  started  late,  some  scholars 
have conducted research on option pricing. Ji (2015) used the GARCH model 
and the B-S model to analyze the SSE 50ETF option price, and concluded that 
the  GARCH  model  has  a  good  fitting  effect  on  small  sample  data.  Liu  et  al. 
(2018) conducted European barrier option pricing research in a mixed-fraction 
Brownian  motion  environment,  and  derived  the  European  barrier  option  call 
put-parity  relationship,  and  then  entered  the  knockout  option  relationship  to 
introduce all types of barrier option pricing formulas. Cheng et al. (2018) consi-
dered the pricing of European options when paying continuous dividends under 
the sub-fractional Brownian motion environment, and estimated the parameters 
in the pricing model. The unbiasedness and strong convergence of the estima-
tors were discussed. It can be seen that both the fractal Brownian motion model 
and  the  B-S  model  are  common  method  models  for  studying  option  pricing 
methods. In this paper, the Shanghai 50ETF is the research object. Based on the 
comparison between the pricing of the two models and historical actual condi-
tions, which model is selected as a more reasonable pricing model. 
1.2. Comparison between Traditional B-S Option Pricing Method   
and Fractal Brownian Motion Option Pricing Method 
The B-S option pricing method is proposed under the assumption that the un-
derlying  asset  prices  are  independent  of  each  other  and  follow  the  geometric 
Brownian  motion,  and  that  the  return  on  the  underlying  asset  is  independent 
and identically distributed and follows the normal distribution. However, in re-
cent years, a large number of scholars’ research on the capital market has shown 
that the price of financial assets does not follow the geometric Brownian motion, 
that is, the rate of return of financial assets does not follow a normal distribu-
tion, but a distribution of peaks and thick tails. It is not independent, but there is 
long-term correlation. Therefore, the B-S option pricing method has some limi-
tations in practical application. 
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Modern Economy 
W. T. Hu 
 
The fractal Brownian motion option pricing method is the first time that Hu 
Y applied it to financial option pricing based on Mandelbrot B’s fractal Brow-
nian motion. The main difference between fractal Brownian motion and geome-
tric Brownian motion is that the increment in fractal Brownian motion is not 
independent,  while  the  increment  in  geometric  Brownian  motion  is  indepen-
dent. Because the fractal Brownian motion option pricing method can well cha-
racterize the self-similarity, thick tail, and long memory of the underlying asset 
price, and does not require the underlying asset prices to be independent of each 
other, obey the geometric Brownian motion, and the underlying asset return rate 
to follow a normal distribution Therefore, it is more in line with the actual cha-
racteristics of financial option prices. Subsequently, many researchers used the 
fractal Brownian motion option pricing method to study the pricing problem of 
the stock option market under the assumption that the stock price volatility was 
constant. It was verified that the fractal Brownian motion option pricing method 
was superior to B-S and other option pricing methods. 
2. Literature Review 
2.1. Literature Review of Volatility Models at Home and Abroad 
There are many researches on the modeling and prediction methods of volatility. 
Robert Engle proposed an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) 
model in 1982 to build and predict conditional heteroscedasticity models. Early 
ARCH family models include ARCH-M models, TARCH and NARCH models. 
The ARCH-M model was first proposed by Engle, Robins, and Lilien in 1985. 
The ARCH model takes into account the variation of conditional variance over 
time  to  analyze  volatility,  and  the  analysis  of  volatility is inseparable  from  the 
risk. Engle et al. further took into consideration the important use of conditional 
variance as a risk measure that changes over time, linking risk and return, and 
proposed  the  ARCH-M  model,  which  allows  conditional  heteroscedasticity  to 
directly affect the mean of returns. The TARCH model considers the variance is 
affected by the sign of the disturbance term, and NARCH is an important non-
linear ARCH model. Both of them specifically address some of the defects of the 
linear  ARCH  model,  which  is  more  than  the  linear  ARCH  model  advanced. 
However, in some cases, the ARCH model cannot express the information that 
the autocorrelation coefficient is slowly decaying, and in practice, the estimation 
of  the  completely  free  lag  distribution  often  leads  to  the  destruction  of 
non-negative constraints. To solve the shortcomings of the ARCH model, Bol-
lerslev (1986) proposed the GARCH model in 1986. The variance of the random 
disturbance term is not only related to the variance of the lagging disturbance 
term,  but  also  to  the  lagging  disturbance  term  itself. After  that,  the  EGARCH 
(Exponential GARCH) model was proposed by Nelson in 1991. The biggest ad-
vantage of the model is that it takes the form of the logarithm of conditional va-
riance, which allows the assumption of the sum of the squared residuals and the 
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W. T. Hu 
 
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conditional variance to be more advanced. Flexible to capture asymmetric con-
ditions  (good  news  and bad  news  have  asymmetric  market  volatility).  China’s 
financial derivatives industry started late, and there are few innovative studies on 
volatility  using  the  GARCH  family,  and  more  emphasis  is  placed  on  applica-
tions. Representative examples are Zheng and Huang (2010). The comparison of 
the  prediction  capabilities  of  the  GARCH  model  and  the  implied  volatility  is 
mainly based on the research on the volatility of the Hong Kong Hang Seng In-
dex Options Market. There are more information and strong forecasting ability; 
but  when  forecasting  for a  long  period of  time,  the  implied  volatility  contains 
more information and strong forecasting ability. At the same time, the more ac-
tive the options market transactions, the more comprehensive the information it 
reflects,  and  the  stronger  the  ability  to  predict  implied  volatility.  In  addition, 
Huang  and  Zhong  (2007)  also  evaluated  the  volatility  prediction  of  GARCH 
models. The research results show that the GARCH model is used to compre-
hensively estimate the rate of return and out-of-sample prediction. The use of 
M-Z regression and loss function shows that it performs very well and can per-
form better predictions. 
The study of volatility can reflect the market’s expectations of the degree of 
future volatility, thereby achieving the purpose of risk prevention and guiding 
transactions. For example, in 1993 the Chicago Board Options Exchange com-
piled the VIX Volatility Index based on the S & P Index. To this day, the volatil-
ity index has become the main reference indicator for measuring investor psy-
chology and market volatility. It uses stock index option prices to calculate ex-
pected  short-term market volatility.  The  volatility index  can  not  only quantify 
the price changes of derivatives and market risks, but also provides investment 
opportunities due to its volatile nature. The market can make full use of its cha-
racteristics to develop tradable volatility products for hedged trading and arbi-
trage trading. 
Research  on  volatility  can  give  investors  a  better  understanding  of  risk.  At 
present, domestic stock index options are only listed and traded on the Shanghai 
Stock Exchange 50ETF options. The study of volatility can lay the foundation for 
the subsequent listing of more financial options. 
2.2. Literature Review on Options Pricing at Home and Abroad 
Since 1970, on financial option pricing, Black-Scholes (BS) option pricing, Hull- 
White option pricing, binary tree option pricing, and fractal Brownian motion 
option pricing have emerged, among which BS option pricing and fractal Brown 
Exercise option pricing are more common and easy-to-use methods. 
With the development of the foreign option market, the empirical research on 
option pricing has become more and more in-depth, mainly including the im-
provement of variables or parameters and the validation of models. The empiri-
cal start on the improvement of variables or parameters was the earliest. Levy 
and Byun (1987) tried to test the reliability of BS model pricing by deriving the 
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W. T. Hu 
 
implied volatility of the price based on the confidence interval of the estimated 
variance; Corrado and Su (1998) through empirical research on the S & P 500 
stock index options, it is found that the return volatility is negatively correlated 
with changes in the stock index level, and the parameters of the stochastic vola-
tility option pricing model are estimated and predicted, and the practical appli-
cation value of the stochastic volatility option pricing model is revealed. Saurab-
ha and Tiwari (2007) in order to solve the volatility smile problem in the tradi-
tional BS option pricing model, two statistical variables of skewness and kurtosis 
are introduced. Based on the relevant data of S & P 500 options, the volatility is 
used. Estimating the prices of deep currency options and deep out-of-the-money 
options can produce prediction results that are closer to the market price of op-
tions;  Andrés-Sánchez  (2017)  analyzes  the  option  pricing  model  based  on  the 
basic theory of the fuzzy BS model, through the actual trading of Spanish stock 
index options Price fitting related parameters, fuzzy BS model from different an-
gles. The ability to predict the price of stock index options is evaluated. Regard-
ing the validity analysis of the model, scholars’ empirical evidence is based on 
different theoretical models. Bailey and Stulz (1989) performed dynamic analysis 
and empirical testing of stock index options based on stochastic interest rate op-
tion pricing models and stochastic volatility option pricing models, respectively; 
Yung and Zhang (2003) used S & P 500 option data to model GARCH option 
pricing models Multi-angle empirical analysis with the pricing effect of the tra-
ditional BS model, and found that the GARCH model performs better than the 
traditional BS model in sample evaluation and sample prediction; Kim and Lee 
(2013)  proposed  an  estimate  of  volatility  without  arbitrage  Rate  model,  using 
KOSPI 200 index options to conduct empirical analysis of three indicators: in-
tra-sample pricing, out-of-sample pricing and hedging error, verifying the effec-
tiveness of  the  model in  option  pricing; Oliver  and Li  (2015)  from  the  equili-
brium interest  rate  and  consumption  Based  on  the  perspective  of  capital asset 
pricing, based on the price data of European call options, a reasonable prediction 
of the price jump time in the jump-diffusion option pricing model is realized to 
clarify how the relevant parameters of the model affect the actual option pricing. 
Domestic research on the options market started late. With the further open-
ing  of  the financial market,  the  options  trading  market  has  become  more  and 
more active, and research on pricing models has become more common. 
Early  scholars’  empirical  research  mainly  focused  on  the pricing  analysis  of 
alternatives to domestic market options and the data simulation of foreign mar-
ket-related options. Song et al. (2013) by studying the game between transferable 
bond trading terms, introducing game options and selecting domestic converti-
ble bonds for empirical analysis, the double reflection wall backward stochastic 
pricing  model  has  better  price  simulation  and  prediction  effects;  Liao  et  al. 
(2013) selected the Korean stock index option KOSPI200 as the research object, 
and  used  the  fractional  Brownian  motion  option  pricing model  to  fit  relevant 
actual data, and conducted an empirical test on the accuracy and effectiveness of 
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W. T. Hu 
 
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the model. Qin et al. (2019) based on the fractional BS model, taking into ac-
count the uncertainty of the financial market including randomness and ambi-
guity, using stochastic analysis, fractal theory, and fuzzy set theory to construct a 
long  memory  characteristic  of  financial  markets  under  uncertainty  European 
option pricing model. Wang et al. (2019) combined a Heston model and a 3/2 
model to establish a two-factor 4/2 stochastic volatility model, using S & P 500 
index option data for pricing analysis. 
2.3. Research Status of SSE 50ETF Option Pricing 
In 2015, the emergence of China’s first listed options on the Shanghai Stock Ex-
change 50 ETF options in the capital market has led to an explosive growth in 
domestic discussions and research on options pricing models. 
Gu and Dong (2015) used the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 stock index futures 
and  the  Shanghai  50ETF  options  as  samples  to  analyze  the  correlation  coeffi-
cients  and  deviations  of  volatility  of  dispersion  trading,  and  then  analyze  the 
trading risks of the option pricing model. Yu and Chen (2016) used the theoret-
ical framework of the B-S model to conduct an empirical analysis on the core 
parameters of the five SSE 50ETF options, including the underlying asset price, 
and made relevant recommendations for the supervisors from the perspective of 
contract  design  and  risk  control. At  this stage, many scholars have  conducted 
in-depth discussions on the pricing of SSE 50ETF options from multiple pers-
pectives.  Gong  and  Zhuang  (2016)  combined  the  asymmetric  real  variable 
high-order moment model characterizing the high-order moment characteristics 
of asset prices and the Levy process to describe the pure jump phenomenon of 
price  changes,  and  constructed  the  Levy-NGARCHSK  model;  this  model fully 
reflects the financial. The asset price path continues to be biased and leveraged. 
Under  the  assumption  that  the  innovation  term  obeys  the  non-Gaussian  Levy 
distribution, the author compares the accuracy and efficiency of the numerical 
integral Cosine method and the Monte Carlo simulation pricing method to the 
pricing of SSE 50ETF options. Fang, Zhang, and Qiao (2017) conducted an em-
pirical  comparative  analysis  of  the  performance  of  the  B-S  model  and  Monte 
Carlo simulation method on the pricing of SSE 50ETF options. The results show 
that the IGARCH model can better fit the volatility of the Shanghai Stock Ex-
change 50ETF than the traditional GARCH model. When the number of simula-
tions is  1000,  the  efficiency  of  the  Monte  Carlo  method is  consistently  higher 
than that of the BSM model. The accuracy of other Monte Carlo models is also 
higher than the BSM model; both the BSM model and the Monte Carlo simula-
tion method can accurately and effectively simulate the price of the SSE 50ETF 
option. Lei and Wu (2017) used the Tobit model to analyze the impact of the 
underlying asset liquidity on the SSE 50ETF option price and explained the va-
lidity of the option pricing; Hao and Du (2017) fused the GARCH model and the 
generalized  hyperbolic  distribution  based  on  their  respective  advantages,  a 
GARCH-GH option pricing model based on the SSE 50ETF was established. The 
412 
Modern Economy 
W. T. Hu 
 
results show that the pricing results of the GARCH-GH model are closer to the 
actual  prices  of  the  SSE  50ETF  options  than  the  BS  model  and  the  GARCH- 
Gaussian  model.  Wang  and  Yang  (2016)  used  the  high  frequency  data  of  the 
Shanghai 50ETF option to empirically analyze the pricing accuracy of a hybrid 
log-normal option pricing model with time-varying volatility, and found that the 
model was superior to the one with event volatility characteristics B-S improved 
model.  Wu,  Zhao,  Li,  & Ma  (2019)  made  in-depth  research  on option  pricing 
under time-varying risk aversion, and concluded that TVRA-SV option pricing 
model  has  better  data  fitting  effect  than  traditional  CRA-SV  option  pricing 
model,  and  can  more  fully  characterize  the  volatility  of  the  SSE  50ETF  return 
under the objective and risk-neutral measure. Wu, Li, & Ma (2019) conducted 
an  empirical  test using  a stochastic  volatility model,  showing  that  the random 
volatility model can obtain significantly more accurate and stable pricing results 
than the traditional constant volatility B-S model, both within and outside the 
sample. 
Based on previous studies, this article uses the GARCH model to fit and pre-
dict the return volatility of the Shanghai 50ETF; the predicted volatility is used 
as  the  input  value  to  substitute  the  fractal  Brownian  motion  option  pricing 
method, and the traditional and improved B-S option pricing method is used 
to estimate. 
3. The Establishment of Theoretical Methods and Models 
3.1. Forecast Method of Yield Volatility 
When using the B-S model to price options, it is assumed that the volatility of 
asset prices is a constant value, which is not consistent with the actual financial 
market  situation,  and  the  volatility  is  time-varying.  Therefore,  scholars  have 
proposed a series of stochastic volatility models to improve the B-S model, hop-
ing to better characterize the characteristics of stochastic volatility. In summary, 
there  are  two main  types of  stochastic volatility models. One  is a  continuous- 
time stochastic volatility model (SV model), and the other is a discrete-time sto-
chastic  volatility  model  (GARCH  model).  In  financial  practice  operations, 
transactions  are  performed  discretely.  The  GARCH  model  describes  discrete- 
time  economic  situations  and better  reflects  the  actual  situation  of  stock  price 
operations in practice. 
The GARCH model is an improvement of Bollerslev’s autoregressive condi-
tional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) model. It has been widely used in the financial 
field since its creation. If the random variable y can be expressed as (1), u is said 
to obey the q-order ARCH process. 
x
1
t
−
2
u
σ β β
1
1
t
−
x
m t m
2
u
β
1
q t q
−
                          (2) 
α α
1
+
0
=
                        (1) 
−
+
x
2
t
2
u
β
2
t
−
α
2
+
+
+
u
t
+
α
y
t
=
+
−
+
+
0
2
t
2
 
DOI: 10.4236/me.2020.112031 
 
Among  them,  since 
2tσ−   is  the  predicted  value  of  the  variance  of  the  pre-
vious period based on the previous information, it is called the conditional va-
413 
Modern Economy 
W. T. Hu 
 
riance. It can be seen from the above model that the variance of the noise at the 
present moment is the regression of the square of the noise value of the finite 
term in the past. On the one hand, it can be seen that the fluctuation of the noise 
is affected by the previous period to produce memorability. The noise variance 
at  the  past  moments  becomes  larger  and  larger,  and  vice  versa.  In  practical 
terms, the overall level of volatility in the stock market in the previous period 
will lead to a higher level of volatility in the current period, which forms the ag-
gregation and memory of the ARCH model. The probability density distribution 
is spiked and thick-tailed. 
Adding the lag of the residual squared to the conditional variance of Equation 
=
(2) constitutes a GARCH model, as shown in Equation (3): 
+
2
u
σ β β
1
1
t
−
+
β
2
0
2
u
β
Among them 
1
1
t
−
2
χσ
  is a GARCH term. Constraints are: 
t p
−
2
+
2
χσ
1
1
t
−
2
χσ
1t
1
−
2
u
t
−
+
β
1
2
u
q t q
−
β
1
2
u
q t q
−
+
β
2
2
u
t
−
2
+
+
+
+
+
+
2
t
p
+
2
χσ
t p
−
p
            (3) 
  is an ARCH term,   
β
0
>
0;
β β
q
,
⋅⋅⋅
,
1
≥
0;
x
1
,
,
⋅⋅⋅
x
p
≥
0;
∑ ∑
β
i
+
x
j
<
1
 
q
i
1
=
p
j
1
=
The GARCH model believes that the variance of the error term in a certain 
period depends not only on the variance of the error term with respect to time, 
but also on the past error term itself. The model takes into account the lag value 
of the disturbance term and the lag value of the conditional variance of the dis-
turbance term, which overcomes the ARCH model’s inability to reflect the per-
sistence of volatility, and is therefore widely used to describe the fluctuation of 
asset  returns  in  financial  markets. However,  the  GARCH  model  still does  not 
solve  the  conditional  heteroscedasticity  in  the  early  ARCH  model,  which  de-
pends on the size of the random perturbation without considering the positive 
and negative. This article does not discuss in depth. 
A lot of empirical evidence shows that GARCH model has a good description 
of financial time series. Therefore, this paper uses the GARCH model to predict 
the volatility of SSE 50ETF returns. The prediction results are used as input val-
ues of the fractal Brownian motion model to price its options. 
3.2. Fractal Brownian Motion Option Pricing Method 
Geometric Brownian motion is an independent quantum process. It is a random 
process with continuous time parameters and continuous state space. However, 
the  returns  on  financial  assets  are  self-similar,  thick-tailed,  and  long-memory. 
The assumption of random walk in financial markets is not valid. For example, 
some scholars found that the distribution of stock returns showed a “spike and 
thick tail”. And the characteristics of the accumulation and persistence of vola-
tility, Mandelbrot (1968) also confirmed the fact that there is a “spike and thick 
tail” in stock returns. Later many other scholars also revealed the fact that there 
is a long-range correlation in financial market returns. When studied the obser-
vations of financial time series, they found that there was a significant autocor-
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DOI: 10.4236/me.2020.112031