It is diffffcult to understand the risk-return trade-off in option market with observable factormodels. In this paper, we employ a latent factor model for delta-hedge option returns over a varietyof important exchange traded options in China, based on the instrumented principal componentanalysis (IPCA). This model incorporates conditional betas instrumented by option characteristics,to tackle the diffffculty caused by short lifespans and rapidly migrating characteristics of options. Ourresults show that a three-factor IPCA model can explain 19.30% variance in returns of individualoptions and 99.23% for managed portfolios. An asset pricing test with bootstrap shows that there isno unexplained alpha term with such a model. Comparison with observable factor model indicatesthe necessity of including characteristics. We also provide subsample analysis and characteristicimportance.

In the era of big data, asset pricing is influenced by various factors, which are extracted from multi-source heterogeneous information, such as high frequency market and sentiment information, low frequency firm characteristic and macroeconomic information. Especially, low frequency policy information plays a significant role in the long-term pricing in China but it is barely investigated due to its textual form. To this end, we first extract policy variables from major national development plans (“Five-Year Plans”, “Government Work Reports”, and “Monetary Policy Reports”) using Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique and Dynamic Topic Model (DTM). However, traditional models are inadequate for mixed frequency data modeling and feature extraction. Then, we propose a mixed frequency deep factor asset pricing model (MIDAS-DF) that solves the asset pricing problems under the mixed frequency data environment through mixed data sampling (MIDAS) technique and deep learning architecture. Time-varying latent factors and factor loadings can be modeled from mixed frequency data directly in a nonlinear and data-driven way. Thus, the MIDAS-DF model is able to learn the nonlinear joint-patterns hidden in multi-source heterogeneous information. Our empirical studies of 4939 stocks on the Chinese A-share market from January 2003 to July 2022 demonstrate that low frequency policy information has profound impacts on asset pricing, which anchors the long-term pricing direction, and high frequency market and sentiment information have significant influences on stock prices, which optimize the short-term pricing accuracy, they together enhance the pricing effects. Consequently, pricing effects the MIDAS-DF model outperform the five competing models on individual stocks, various test portfolios, and investment portfolios. Our research about heterogeneous information provides implications to the government and regulators for decision-support in policy-making and our investment portfolio is of great importance for investors’ financial decisions.