Abstract
We use Taiwan volatility index data from TAIFEX and TAIEX index return data from TWSE at both the daily and intraday level to examine the short-term dynamic relation and propose the behavior of investors to explain their relation. Then we describe investors’ mentalities in Taiwanese financial market including representativeness heuristics, affect heuristics, extrapolation phenomenon, and additional fear of a crash. Also, the similarities and dissimilarities between empirical results of TVIX/TVXO and VIX/IV are discussed in the study. Empirical results show that there is a negative and asymmetric relation between Taiwan volatility index and index return and that leverage hypothesis is not reasonable to explain short-term relation. However, the behavioral explanation is consistent with our results. Furthermore, we prove that investors in Taiwan actually make decisions by representativeness heuristics and affect heuristics in truth, extrapolate the future volatility index by different period data, and think perhaps that the difference between empirical results of TVIX/TVXO and VIX/IV is because TAIEX index option investors’ mentalities are distinct between near the money and out of money/in the money. We also notice that negative index return has a larger effect on the change in Taiwan volatility index than positive one. In detail, the more the magnitude of negative index returns increases, the more the sensitivity of the change in Taiwan volatility index rises. This fact manifests that the additional fear of crash exists in investors’ mind.