Epsilon
Calculate the epsilon of an option based on the Black Scholes Model. The Black Scholes Model is a mathematical model used to estimate the price of European-style options. The epsilon is the rate of change of the option price with respect to the dividend yield.
The epsilon calculation is the theoretical value of the epsilon. The actual epsilon can differ from this value due to several factors such as the volatility of the underlying asset, the time to expiration, the risk free rate and more.
The formula is as follows:
\[d_{1} = (\ln(S / K) + (r - q + (\sigma ^{2}) / 2) \cdot t) / (\sigma \cdot \sqrt{t})\] \[\text{Call Epsilon} = - S \cdot t \cdot e ^{- q \cdot t} \cdot N(d_{1})\] \[\text{Put Epsilon} = S \cdot t \cdot e ^{- q \cdot t} \cdot N(- d_{1})\]Where S is the stock price, K is the strike price, r is the risk free rate, q is the dividend yield, σ is the volatility, t is the time to expiration, N(d1) is the cumulative normal distribution of d1 and N(d2) is the the cumulative normal distribution of d2.
Epsilon is reported unscaled, per 1.00 change in the dividend yield, matching Rho and Vera.
The Epsilon can be interpreted as follows:
- If Epsilon is positive, it indicates that the option value will increase as the dividend yield increases, and vice versa.
- If Epsilon is negative, it implies that the option value will decrease as the dividend yield increases, and vice versa.
Also known as: option sensitivity to dividend yield.
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Calculate the Epsilon in Python
The Epsilon is available in the Options module of the open-source Finance Toolkit. Install it with:
pip install financetoolkit -U
Then call get_epsilon as shown below.
from financetoolkit import Toolkit
toolkit = Toolkit(["AAPL", "ASML"], api_key="FINANCIAL_MODELING_PREP_KEY")
toolkit.options.get_epsilon().loc["AAPL"]
Which returns:
| Strike Price | 2026-07-24 | 2026-07-25 | 2026-07-26 | 2026-07-27 | 2026-07-28 | 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-30 | 2026-07-31 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 335 | -2.2322 | -2.4486 | -2.6713 | -2.9002 | -3.1348 | -3.3748 | -3.6201 | -3.8704 |
| 340 | -1.5011 | -1.6706 | -1.8471 | -2.0302 | -2.2196 | -2.415 | -2.6163 | -2.8231 |
| 345 | -0.9737 | -1.1015 | -1.2361 | -1.3775 | -1.5253 | -1.6794 | -1.8396 | -2.0055 |
| 350 | -0.6097 | -0.7022 | -0.8012 | -0.9065 | -1.018 | -1.1356 | -1.2591 | -1.3883 |
| 355 | -0.3689 | -0.4333 | -0.5033 | -0.579 | -0.6603 | -0.7471 | -0.8394 | -0.9371 |
| 360 | -0.2158 | -0.2589 | -0.3067 | -0.3592 | -0.4165 | -0.4786 | -0.5454 | -0.6171 |
| 365 | -0.1222 | -0.15 | -0.1815 | -0.2167 | -0.2557 | -0.2987 | -0.3457 | -0.3968 |
| 370 | -0.0671 | -0.0843 | -0.1043 | -0.1271 | -0.1529 | -0.1818 | -0.2139 | -0.2492 |
| 375 | -0.0357 | -0.0461 | -0.0583 | -0.0727 | -0.0892 | -0.108 | -0.1293 | -0.1531 |
| 380 | -0.0185 | -0.0245 | -0.0318 | -0.0405 | -0.0507 | -0.0627 | -0.0764 | -0.092 |
Parameters
get_epsilon accepts the following parameters:
- start_date (str | None, optional): The start date which determines the stock price. Defaults to None which means it will use the most recent date.
- strike_price_range (float): The percentage range to use for the strike prices. Defaults to 0.25 which equals 25% and thus results in strike prices from 75 to 125 if the current stock price is 100.
- strike_step_size (int): The step size to use for the strike prices. Defaults to 5 which means that the strike prices will be 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115 and 120 if the current stock price is 100.
- expiration_time_range (int): The number of days to use for the time to expiration. Defaults to 30 which equals 30 days.
- risk_free_rate (float, optional): The risk free rate to use for the calculation. Defaults to None which means it will use the current risk free rate.
- dividend_yield (float, optional): The dividend yield to use for the calculation. Defaults to None which means it will use the dividend yield as obtained through annual historical data.
- put_option (bool, optional): Whether to calculate the put option epsilon. Defaults to False which means it will calculate the call option epsilon.
- show_input_info (bool, optional): Whether to show the input information. Defaults to False.
- rounding (int | None, optional): The number of decimals to round the results to. Defaults to 4.
- standardize (bool, optional): Whether to standardize (Z-Score) the result across the time to expiration columns for each ticker and strike price. Defaults to False.
Related First-Order Greeks
The Options module page introduces the module, and the sidebar lists all of its functions.