Model Residuals
Model residuals represent the portion of a financial asset price movement that cannot be explained by a specific quantitative pricing model, such as Black-Scholes. In the context of options trading, when a model predicts a theoretical price based on inputs like volatility and time to expiry, the difference between that predicted price and the actual market price is the residual.
These residuals are critical for identifying market inefficiencies or mispricings. If residuals are consistently large, it suggests the model fails to capture essential market dynamics like jump diffusion or stochastic volatility.
Traders analyze these residuals to refine their hedging strategies and identify potential arbitrage opportunities. Essentially, residuals are the unexplained noise or the missing variables in a pricing formula.