One of the main practical applications of quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods is the valuation of financial derivatives. We aim to give a short introduction into option pricing and show how it is facilitated using QMC. We give some practical examples for illustration.
This paper deals with pricing of European and American options, when the underlying asset price follows Heston model, via the interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin finite element method (dGFEM). The advantages of dGFEM space discretization with Rannacher smoothing as time integrator with nonsmooth initial and boundary conditions are illustrated for European vanilla options, digital call and American put options. The convection dominated Heston model for vanishing volatility is efficiently solved utilizing the adaptive dGFEM. For fast solution of the linear complementary problem of the Americ…
We clarify the relations among different Fourier-based approaches to option pricing, and improve the B-spline probability density projection method using the sinh-acceleration technique. This allows us to efficiently separate the control of different sources of errors better than the FFT-based realization allows; in many cases, the CPU time decreases as well. We demonstrate the improvement of the B-spline projection method through several numerical experiments in option pricing, including European and barrier options, where the SINH acceleration technique proves to be robust and accurate.
We consider option pricing using a discrete-time Markov switching stochastic volatility with co-jump model, which can model volatility clustering and varying mean-reversion speeds of volatility. For pricing European options, we develop a computationally efficient method for obtaining the probability distribution of average integrated variance (AIV), which is key to option pricing under stochastic-volatility-type models. Building upon the efficiency of the European option pricing approach, we are able to price an American-style option, by converting its pricing into the pricing of a portfolio o…
When pricing options, there may be different views on the instantaneous mean return of the underlying price process. According to Black (1972), where there exist heterogeneous views on the instantaneous mean return, this will result in arbitrage opportunities. Behavioral finance proponents argue that such heterogenous views are likely to occur and this will not impact option pricing models proposed by rational dynamic asset pricing theory and will not give rise to volatility smiles. To rectify this, a leading advocate of behavioral finance has proposed a behavioral option pricing model. As the…
In this paper we study recent developments in the approximation of the spread option pricing. As the Kirkś Approximation is extremely flawed in the cases when the correlation is very high, we explore a recent development that allows approximating with simplicity and accuracy the option price. To assess the goodness of fit of the new method, we increase dramatically the number of simulations and scenarios to test the new method and compare it with the original Kirkś formula. The simulations confirmed that the Modified Kirkś Approximation method is extremely accurate, improving Kirkś approach fo…
In this paper we investigate a nonlinear generalization of the Black-Scholes equation for pricing American style call options in which the volatility term may depend on the underlying asset price and the Gamma of the option. We propose a numerical method for pricing American style call options by means of transformation of the free boundary problem for a nonlinear Black-Scholes equation into the so-called Gamma variational inequality with the new variable depending on the Gamma of the option. We apply a modified projective successive over relaxation method in order to construct an effective nu…
In the standard Black-Scholes-Merton framework, dividends are represented as a continuous dividend yield and the pricing of Vanilla options on a stock is achieved through the well-known Black-Scholes formula. In reality however, stocks pay a discrete fixed cash dividend at each dividend ex-date. This leads to the so-called piecewise lognormal model, where the asset jumps from a fixed known amount at each dividend date. There is however no exact closed-form formula for the pricing of Vanilla options under this model. Approximations must be used. While there exists many approximations taylored t…
This paper proposes the sample path generation method for the stochastic volatility version of CGMY process. We present the Monte-Carlo method for European and American option pricing with the sample path generation and calibrate model parameters to the American style S\&P 100 index options market, using the least square regression method. Moreover, we discuss path-dependent options such as Asian and Barrier options.
We present an alternative formula to price European options through cosine series expansions, under models with a known characteristic function such as the Heston stochastic volatility model. It is more robust across strikes and as fast as the original COS method.
In this paper we study the pricing of exchange options when underlying assets have stochastic volatility and stochastic correlation. An approximation using a closed-form approximation based on a Taylor expansion of the conditional price is proposed. Numerical results are illustrated for exchanges between WTI and Brent type oil prices.
The author presents alternatives to the Black-Scholes european call option pricing model by incorporating different transaction cost structures in the replicating strategy. In particular, an exponentially decreasing structure is proposed and developed.
We present a simple, fast, and accurate method for pricing a variety of discretely monitored options in the Black-Scholes framework, including autocallable structured products, single and double barrier options, and Bermudan options. The method is based on a quadrature technique, and it employs only elementary calculations and a fixed one-dimensional uniform grid. The convergence rate is $O(1/N^4)$ and the complexity is $O(MN\log N)$, where $N$ is the number of grid points and $M$ is the number of observation dates.
There is no exact closed form formula for pricing of European options with discrete cash dividends under the model where the underlying asset price follows a piecewise lognormal process with jumps at dividend ex-dates. This paper presents alternative expansions based on the technique of Etore and Gobet, leading to more robust first, second and third-order expansions across the range of strikes and the range of dividend dates.
We study the pricing and hedging of European spread options on correlated assets when, in contrast to the standard framework and consistent with imperfect liquidity markets, the trading in the stock market has a direct impact on stocks prices. We consider a partial-impact and a full-impact model in which the price impact is caused by every trading strategy in the market. The generalized Black-Scholes pricing partial differential equations (PDEs) are obtained and analysed. We perform a numerical analysis to exhibit the illiquidity effect on the replication strategy of the European spread option…
We propose a very efficient method for pricing various types of lookback options under Markov models. We utilize the model-free representations of lookback option prices as integrals of first passage probabilities. We combine efficient numerical quadrature with continuous-time Markov chain approximation for the first passage problem to price lookbacks. Our method is applicable to a variety of models, including one-dimensional time-homogeneous and time-inhomogeneous Markov processes, regime-switching models and stochastic local volatility models. We demonstrate the efficiency of our method thro…
We introduce a stacking version of the Monte Carlo algorithm in the context of option pricing. Introduced recently for aeronautic computations, this simple technique, in the spirit of current machine learning ideas, learns control variates by approximating Monte Carlo draws with some specified function. We describe the method from first principles and suggest appropriate fits, and show its efficiency to evaluate European and Asian Call options in constant and stochastic volatility models.
This paper presents a multinomial method for option pricing when the underlying asset follows an exponential Variance Gamma process. The continuous time Variance Gamma process is approximated by a discrete time Markov chain with the same firsts four cumulants. This approach is particularly convenient for pricing American and Bermudan options, which can be exercised at any time up to expiration date. Numerical computations of European and American options are presented, and compared with results obtained with finite differences methods and with the Black Scholes model.
In this paper we introduce a deep learning method for pricing and hedging American-style options. It first computes a candidate optimal stopping policy. From there it derives a lower bound for the price. Then it calculates an upper bound, a point estimate and confidence intervals. Finally, it constructs an approximate dynamic hedging strategy. We test the approach on different specifications of a Bermudan max-call option. In all cases it produces highly accurate prices and dynamic hedging strategies with small replication errors.
We present new numerical schemes for pricing perpetual Bermudan and American options as well as $α$-quantile options. This includes a new direct calculation of the optimal exercise barrier for early-exercise options. Our approach is based on the Spitzer identities for general Lévy processes and on the Wiener-Hopf method. Our direct calculation of the price of $α$-quantile options combines for the first time the Dassios-Port-Wendel identity and the Spitzer identities for the extrema of processes. Our results show that the new pricing methods provide excellent error convergence with respect to c…
We examine in this article the pricing of target volatility options in the lognormal fractional SABR model. A decomposition formula by Ito's calculus yields a theoretical replicating strategy for the target volatility option, assuming the accessibilities of all variance swaps and swaptions. The same formula also suggests an approximation formula for the price of target volatility option in small time by the technique of freezing the coefficient. Alternatively, we also derive closed formed expressions for a small volatility of volatility expansion of the price of target volatility option. Numer…
A new method for stochastic control based on neural networks and using randomisation of discrete random variables is proposed and applied to optimal stopping time problems. The method models directly the policy and does not need the derivation of a dynamic programming principle nor a backward stochastic differential equation. Unlike continuous optimization where automatic differentiation is used directly, we propose a likelihood ratio method for gradient computation. Numerical tests are done on the pricing of American and swing options. The proposed algorithm succeeds in pricing high dimension…
We present a stochastic local volatility model for derivative contracts on commodity futures. The aim of the model is to be able to recover the prices of derivative claims both on futures contracts and on indices on futures strategies. Numerical examples for calibration and pricing are provided for the S&P GSCI Crude Oil excess-return index.
This paper presents the Runge-Kutta-Legendre finite difference scheme, allowing for an additional shift in its polynomial representation. A short presentation of the stability region, comparatively to the Runge-Kutta-Chebyshev scheme follows. We then explore the problem of pricing American options with the Runge-Kutta-Legendre scheme under the one factor Black-Scholes and the two factor Heston stochastic volatility models, as well as the pricing of butterfly spread and digital options under the uncertain volatility model, where a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman partial differential equation needs to b…
This research investigates pricing financial options based on the traditional martingale theory of arbitrage pricing applied to neural SDEs. We treat neural SDEs as universal Itô process approximators. In this way we can lift all assumptions on the form of the underlying price process, and compute theoretical option prices numerically. We propose a variation of the SDE-GAN approach by implementing the Wasserstein distance metric as a loss function for training. Furthermore, it is conjectured that the error of the option price implied by the learnt model can be bounded by the very Wasserstein d…
Pricing of financial derivatives, in particular early exercisable options such as Bermudan options, is an important but heavy numerical task in financial institutions, and its speed-up will provide a large business impact. Recently, applications of quantum computing to financial problems have been started to be investigated. In this paper, we first propose a quantum algorithm for Bermudan option pricing. This method performs the approximation of the continuation value, which is a crucial part of Bermudan option pricing, by Chebyshev interpolation, using the values at interpolation nodes estima…
Contrary to the common view that exact pricing is prohibitive owing to the curse of dimensionality, this study proposes an efficient and unified method for pricing options under multivariate Black-Scholes-Merton (BSM) models, such as the basket, spread, and Asian options. The option price is expressed as a quadrature integration of analytic multi-asset BSM prices under a single Brownian motion. Then the state space is rotated in such a way that the quadrature requires much coarser nodes than it would otherwise or low varying dimensions are reduced. The accuracy and efficiency of the method is …
We continue a series of papers devoted to construction of semi-analytic solutions for barrier options. These options are written on underlying following some simple one-factor diffusion model, but all the parameters of the model as well as the barriers are time-dependent. We managed to show that these solutions are systematically more efficient for pricing and calibration than, eg., the corresponding finite-difference solvers. In this paper we extend this technique to pricing double barrier options and present two approaches to solving it: the General Integral transform method and the Heat Pot…
Barrier options are one of the most widely traded exotic options on stock exchanges. In this paper, we develop a new stochastic simulation method for pricing barrier options and estimating the corresponding execution probabilities. We show that the proposed method always outperforms the standard Monte Carlo approach and becomes substantially more efficient when the underlying asset has high volatility, while it performs better than multilevel Monte Carlo for special cases of barrier options and underlying assets. These theoretical findings are confirmed by numerous simulation results.
