Estimation of the volatility of a security is an impOitant
and practical issue in pricing options and
measuring portfolio risks (Merton 1990). The
classical estimator is based on the close-to-close
prices only. More sophisticated estimators in literature
use additional information such as high,
low, and open prices to achieve better accuracy.
However, in constructing these estimators, some
assumed that the security price has no " drift"
motion (such estimators tend to overestimate the
volatility), while others assumed no opening
price jumps (i.e., the opening price is the same
as the previous closing price; such estimators
tend to underestimate the volatility). In this article,
we present a new unbiased estimator based
on multiple periods of open, close, high and low
~ Our estimator is independent of both the
drift motion and opening jumps. The variance of
our estimator IS smaIIest among all estimators
with similar properties .