Valuation of Covered Warrant Subject to Default Risk

There is no margin settlement mechanism for existing covered warrants in Taiwan, thus the credit risk of the warrant issuer must be considered when investors evaluate the price of a covered warrant. This paper applies the vulnerable option valuation model to empirically study the difference in the theoretical value of a vulnerable warrant, Black–Scholes option price and the market price of warrant by using the Taiwan warrant data. Empirical results show that the theoretical value of a vulnerable warrant is lower than the Black–Scholes non-vulnerable option value and its market value.