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Doubling a call's maturity from 100 to 200 days

Question

You see the price of a European call with 100100 days to expiry. Roughly how should the price of the same call with 200200 days to expiry compare?

Short answer

Higher, but well under double: roughly 2≈1.4\sqrt{2} \approx 1.4 times for a near-the-money call. Option value is driven by σT\sigma\sqrt{T} (the ATM approximation is 0.4 σST0.4\,\sigma S\sqrt{T}), so doubling TT scales it by about 2\sqrt 2. Far from the money or with large rates the ratio differs, but it stays below 22 for a non-dividend call.

Adapted from Crack, Heard on the Street, Q2.21, p.27; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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