Option pricing with mean reversion and stochastic volatility

Many underlying assets of option contracts, such as currencies, commodities, energy, temperature and even some stocks, exhibit both mean reversion and stochastic volatility. This paper investigates the valuation of options when the underlying asset follows a mean-reverting lognormal process with stochastic volatility. A closed-form solution is derived for European options by means of Fourier transform. The proposed model allows the option pricing formula to capture both the term structure of futures prices and the market implied volatility smile within a unified framework. A bivariate trinomial lattice approach is introduced to value path-dependent options with the proposed model. Numerical examples using European options, American options and barrier options demonstrate the use of the model and the quality of the numerical scheme.     

DG method for numerical pricing of multi-asset Asian options—The case of options with floating strike

Option pricing models are an important part of financial markets worldwide. The PDE formulation of these models leads to analytical solutions only under very strong simplifications. For more general models the option price needs to be evaluated by numerical techniques. First, based on an ideal pure diffusion process for two risky asset prices with an additional path-dependent variable for continuous arithmetic average, we present a general form of PDE for pricing of Asian option contracts on two assets. Further, we focus only on one subclass—Asian options with floating strike—and introduce the concept of the dimensionality reduction with respect to the payoff leading to PDE with two spatial variables. Then the numerical option pricing scheme arising from the discontinuous Galerkin method is developed and some theoretical results are also mentioned. Finally, the aforementioned model is supplemented with numerical results on real market data.     

The discontinuous Galerkin method for discretely observed Asian options

Asian options represent an important subclass of the path-dependent contracts that are identified by payoff depending on the average of the underlying asset prices over the prespecified period of option lifetime. Commonly, this average is observed at discrete dates, and also, early exercise features can be admitted. As a result, analytical pricing formulae are not always available. Therefore, some form of a numerical approximation is essential for efficient option valuation. In this paper, we study a PDE model for pricing discretely observed arithmetic Asian options with fixed as well as floating strike for both European and American exercise features. The pricing equation for such options is similar to the Black-Scholes equation with 1 underlying asset, and the corresponding average appears only in the jump conditions across the sampling dates. The objective of the paper is to present the comprehensive methodological concept that forms and improves the valuation process. We employ a robust numerical procedure based on the discontinuous Galerkin approach arising from the piecewise polynomial generally discontinuous approximations. This technique enables a simple treatment of discrete sampling by incorporation of jump conditions at each monitoring date. Moreover, an American early exercise constraint is directly handled as an additional nonlinear source term in the pricing equation. The proposed solving procedure is accompanied by an empirical study with practical results compared to reference values.     

A model and some evidence on pricing compound call options

The most widely accepted option pricing model, derived by Black and Scholes (B-S), studies single priced options. Nevertheless, it has important implications for the relative pricing of compound call options. Compound options are two or more option contracts on a given security with different striking prices but with each expiring on the same day.Studying the relative pricing of compound options provides insight into the efficiency of generally accepted option pricing models. Comparing prices of compound options enables us to analyze factors in option pricing that would remain hidden in studies of single options.We are not primarily concerned with efficiency of option pricing, although some of our results may bear on this issue. Our primary concerns are: (1) to determine the implications of the B-S model for compound options and (2) to explain compound option prices by a number of variables, and thus come to conclusions about option pricing generally.We found difficulty with the B-S model when attempting to explain the relative pricing of compound options. Further, from empirical tests, we found that the most important factor in explaining the relative pricing of compound options is the relative degree of leverage which is operative between the various components of a compound option set.     

Optimal importance sampling for Lévy processes

We develop importance sampling estimators for Monte Carlo pricing of European and path-dependent options in models driven by Lévy processes. Using results from the theory of large deviations for processes with independent increments, we compute an explicit asymptotic approximation for the variance of the pay-off under a time-dependent Esscher-style change of measure. Minimizing this asymptotic variance using convex duality, we then obtain an importance sampling estimator of the option price. We show that our estimator is logarithmically optimal among all importance sampling estimators. Numerical tests in the variance gamma model show consistent variance reduction with a small computational overhead.     

Asymptotic option pricing under the CEV diffusion

In finance, many option pricing models generalizing the Black-Scholes model do not have closed form, analytic solutions so that it is hard to compute the solutions or at least it requires much time to compute the solutions. Therefore, asymptotic representation of options prices of various type has important practical implications in finance. This paper presents asymptotic expansions of option prices in the constant elasticity of variance model as the parameter appearing in the exponent of the diffusion coefficient tends to 2 which corresponds to the well-known Black-Scholes model. We use perturbation theory for partial differential equations to obtain the relevant results for European vanilla, barrier, and lookback options. We make our application of perturbation theory mathematically rigorous by supplying error bounds.     

Uniform Asymptotic Expansions for Pricing European Options

Starting with a stochastic volatility model, in which the volatility depends on a nonlinear function of a fast varying diffusion, and assuming the fast diffusion is mean reverting, the problem of pricing European options is considered in this paper. Uniform asymptotic expansions of the option price are obtained. The formal expansions are justified and the uniform error bounds are derived using outer and inner expansions of the option prices.     

Valuing continuous-installment options

Installment options are path-dependent contingent claims in which the premium is paid discretely or continuously in installments, instead of paying a lump sum at the time of purchase. This paper deals with valuing European continuous-installment options written on dividend-paying assets in the standard Black–Scholes–Merton framework. The valuation of installment options can be formulated as a free boundary problem, due to the flexibility of continuing or stopping to pay installments. On the basis of a PDE for the initial premium, we derive an integral representation for the initial premium, being expressed as a difference of the corresponding European vanilla value and the expected present value of installment payments along the optimal stopping boundary. Applying the Laplace transform approach to this PDE, we obtain explicit Laplace transforms of the initial premium as well as its Greeks, which include the transformed stopping boundary in a closed form. Abelian theorems of Laplace transforms enable us to characterize asymptotic behaviors of the stopping boundary close and at infinite time to expiry. We show that numerical inversion of these Laplace transforms works well for computing both the option value and the optimal stopping boundary.     

Pricing perpetual American options under multiscale stochastic elasticity of variance

This paper studies pricing the perpetual American options under a constant elasticity of variance type of underlying asset price model where the constant elasticity is replaced by a fast mean-reverting Ornstein–Ulenbeck process and a slowly varying diffusion process. By using a multiscale asymptotic analysis, we find the impact of the stochastic elasticity of variance on the option prices and the optimal exercise prices with respect to model parameters. Our results enhance the existing option price structures in view of flexibility and applicability through the market prices of elasticity risk.     

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS ON BINOMIAL TREE METHODS FOR AMERICAN LOOKBACK OPTIONS

1　IntroductionLookback options are path-dependent options whose payoffs depend on the maximumor the minimum of the underlying asset price during the life of the options( see[6] [1 0 ][1 4] ) .Here the maximum or minimum realized asset price may be monitored either con-tinuously or discretely.An American lookback call( put) option allows to be exercised atany time prior to expiry and gives the holder the rightto buy( sell) atthe historical mini-mum( maximum) of the underlying asset price on ex…