Optimal liquidation under partial information with price impact

We study the optimal liquidation problem in a market model where the bid price follows a geometric pure jump process whose local characteristics are driven by an unobservable finite-state Markov chain and by the liquidation rate. This model is consistent with stylized facts of high frequency data such as the discrete nature of tick data and the clustering in the order flow. We include both temporary and permanent effects into our analysis. We use stochastic filtering to reduce the optimal liquidation problem to an equivalent optimization problem under complete information. This leads to a stochastic control problem for piecewise deterministic Markov processes (PDMPs). We carry out a detailed mathematical analysis of this problem. In particular, we derive the optimality equation for the value function, we characterize the value function as continuous viscosity solution of the associated dynamic programming equation, and we prove a novel comparison result. The paper concludes with numerical results illustrating the impact of partial information and price impact on the value function and on the optimal liquidation rate.     

Buyer’s response to a temporary price reduction incorporating freight costs

In this paper, we characterize the buyer’s response to a temporary price reduction. Although there have been many studies that have considered the above problem, most of those studies assume that the buyer orders FOB (free on board) destination and that the freight charges are included in the supplier’s unit price. Our model thus becomes applicable for a buyer whose strategy is to include transportation costs in their purchase decisions. The buyer may want direct control on his inbound logistics costs. The company may have outsourced its logistics function and as a result is charged for freight as invoiced by the public motor carrier. In some cases, the supplier may only allow for orders that are FOB origin. Our model allows for less-than-truckload as well as truckload rates. Freight cost for a LTL shipment is modeled using tariffs set by public carriers in practice. These tariffs generally involve 6–7 breakpoints in terms of the weight of the shipment. Another complication in practice is that the shipper/buyer has an option to over-declare the weight of the shipment.     

Hedging life insurance with pure endowments

We extend the work of Milevsky et al., [Milevsky, M.A., Promislow, S.D., Young, V.R., 2005. Financial valuation of mortality risk via the instantaneous Sharpe ratio (preprint)] and Young, [Young, V.R., 2006. Pricing life insurance under stochastic mortality via the instantaneous Sharpe ratio (preprint)] by pricing life insurance and pure endowments together. We assume that the company issuing the life insurance and pure endowment contracts requires compensation for their mortality risk in the form of a pre-specified instantaneous Sharpe ratio. We show that the price P^m,n for m life insurances and n pure endowments is less than the sum of the price P^m,0 for m life insurances and the price P^0,n for n pure endowments. Thereby, pure endowment contracts serve as a hedge against the (stochastic) mortality risk inherent in life insurance, and vice versa.     

Hedging pure endowments with mortality derivatives

In recent years, a market for mortality derivatives began developing as a way to handle systematic mortality risk, which is inherent in life insurance and annuity contracts. Systematic mortality risk is due to the uncertain development of future mortality intensities, or hazard rates. In this paper, we develop a theory for pricing pure endowments when hedging with a mortality forward is allowed. The hazard rate associated with the pure endowment and the reference hazard rate for the mortality forward are correlated and are modeled by diffusion processes. We price the pure endowment by assuming that the issuing company hedges its contract with the mortality forward and requires compensation for the unhedgeable part of the mortality risk in the form of a pre-specified instantaneous Sharpe ratio. The major result of this paper is that the value per contract solves a linear partial differential equation as the number of contracts approaches infinity. One can represent the limiting price as an expectation under an equivalent martingale measure. Another important result is that hedging with the mortality forward may raise or lower the price of this pure endowment comparing to its price without hedging, as determined in Bayraktar et al. (2009). The market price of the reference mortality risk and the correlation between the two portfolios jointly determine the cost of hedging. We demonstrate our results using numerical examples.     

Hedging insurance books

Complex insurance risks typically have multiple exposures. If available, options on multiple underliers with a short maturity can be employed to hedge this exposure. More precisely, the present value of aggregate payouts is hedged using least squares, ask price minimization, and ask price minimization constrained to long only option positions. The proposed hedges are illustrated for hypothetical Variable Annuity contracts invested in the nine sector ETF’s of the US economy. We simulate the insurance accounts by simulating risk-neutrally the underliers by writing them as transformed correlated normals; the physical and risk-neutral evolution is taken in the variance gamma class as a simple example of a non-Gaussian limit law. The hedges arising from ask price minimization constrained to long only option positions delivers a least cost and most stable result.     

离散条件下标的资产带跳的德尔塔对冲误差研究

讨论了离散条件下的德尔塔对冲以及含泊松跳跃的布莱克—休斯模型下期权的定价问题.在布莱克—休斯模型中对冲被假设为连续发生的,当应用于离散的交易时,对冲误差就产生了.考虑到对冲误差,得出一种离散条件下标的资产带泊松跳跃的修正的布莱克—休斯方程和依赖再对冲区间长度的更精确的德尔塔值.     

VaR最小化的股指期货套期保值比率研究

以VaR最小化为目标,结合波动率预测建立套期保值模型,充分反应了金融收益率尖峰厚尾和波动聚集的特征。通过对沪深300股指期货的日结算数据实证研究发现,在现货组合与股指期货高相关性的条件下,VaR最小化套期保值较最小方差套期保值能进一步降低组合样本外收益率的VaR值,EWMA与Cornish-Fisher展开相结合的方法能取得最好的VaR最小化套期保值效果。     

The impact of resale on entry in second price auctions

This paper investigates the effect of resale allowance on entry strategies in a second price auction with two bidders whose entries are sequential and costly. We first characterize the perfect Bayesian equilibrium in cutoff strategies. We then show that there exists a unique threshold such that if the reseller’s bargaining power is greater (less) than the threshold, resale allowance causes the leading bidder (the following bidder) to have a higher (lower) incentive on entry; i.e., the cutoff of entry becomes lower (higher). We also discuss asymmetric bidders and the original seller’s expected revenue.     

The impact of price skimming on supply and exit decisions

Stochastic inventory control theory has focused on the order and/or pricing policy when the length of the selling period is known. In contrast to this focus, we examine the optimal length of the selling period—which we refer to as market exit time—in the context of a novel inventory replenishment problem faced by a supplier of a new, trendy, and relatively expensive product with a short life cycle. An important characteristic of the problem is that the supplier applies a price skimming strategy over time and the demand is modeled as a nonhomogeneous Poisson process with an intensity that is dependent on time. The supplier's problems of finding the optimal order quantity and market exit time, with the objective of maximizing expected profit, is studied. Procedures are proposed for joint optimization of the objective function with respect to the order quantity and the market exit time. Then, the effects of the order quantity and market exit time on the supplier's profitability are explored on the basis of a quantitative investigation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hedging of Spatial Temperature Risk with Market-Traded Futures

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to construct optimal temperature futures from available market-traded contracts to hedge spatial risk. Temperature dynamics are modelled by a stochastic differential equation with spatial dependence. Optimal positions in market-traded futures minimizing the variance are calculated. Examples with numerical simulations based on a fast algorithm for the generation of random fields are presented.     

The Mean-Variance Hedging in a Bond Market with Jumps

We construct a market of bonds with jumps driven by a general marked point process as well as by a ? ⁿ -valued Wiener process based on Björk et al. [6 Björk , T. , Kabanov , Y. , and Runggaldier , W. 1997 . Bond market structure in the presence of marked point processes . Math. Finance 7 : 211 – 223 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], in which there exists at least one equivalent martingale measure Q ⁰. Then we consider the mean-variance hedging of a contingent claim H ∈ L ²(? _{T 0} ) based on the self-financing portfolio based on the given maturities T ₁,…, T _n with T ₀ < T ₁ < … <T _n  ≤ T*. We introduce the concept of variance-optimal martingale (VOM) and describe the VOM by a backward semimartingale equation (BSE). By making use of the concept of ?*-martingales introduced by Choulli et al. [8 Choulli , T. , Krawczyk , L. , and Stricker , C. 1998 . ?-martingales and their applications in mathematical finance . The Annals of Probability 26 ( 2 ): 853 – 876 . [Google Scholar]], we obtain another BSE which has a unique solution. We derive an explicit solution of the optimal strategy and the optimal cost of the mean-variance hedging by the solutions of these two BSEs.     

Hedging Point Policy Improvement

This paper deals with the production and the corrective maintenance planning control problem for failure-prone manufacturing systems. The introduction of corrective maintenance increases the availability of the manufacturing system, which guarantees the improvement of the system productivity if the production planning is well done. For the one-machine/one-part system, we show that our planning control problem is more efficient than the one given by Akella and Kumar. We also show that the hedging level is lower than the one obtained by Akella and Kumar.     

On a stochastic differential equation arising in a price impact model

We provide sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of solutions to a stochastic differential equation which arises in the price impact model developed by Bank and Kramkov (2011)  and . These conditions are stated as smoothness and boundedness requirements on utility functions or Malliavin differentiability of payoffs and endowments.     

Quantile Hedging in a semi-static market with model uncertainty

With model uncertainty characterized by a convex, possibly non-dominated set of probability measures, the agent minimizes the cost of hedging a path dependent contingent claim with given expected success ratio, in a discrete-time, semi-static market of stocks and options. Based on duality results which link quantile hedging to a randomized composite hypothesis test, an arbitrage-free discretization of the market is proposed as an approximation. The discretized market has a dominating measure, which guarantees the existence of the optimal hedging strategy and helps numerical calculation of the quantile hedging price. As the discretization becomes finer, the approximate quantile hedging price converges and the hedging strategy is asymptotically optimal in the original market.     

The Mean-Variance Hedging of a Defaultable Option with Partial Information

Abstract

We consider the mean-variance hedging of a defaultable claim in a general stochastic volatility model. By introducing a new measure Q ⁰, we derive the martingale representation theorem with respect to the investors' filtration . We present an explicit form of the optimal-variance martingale measure by means of a stochastic Riccati equation (SRE). For a general contingent claim, we represent the optimal strategy and the optimal cost of the mean-variance hedging by means of another backward stochastic differential equation (BSDE). For the defaultable option, especially when there exists a random recovery rate we give an explicit form of the solution of the BSDE.     

Portfolio optimization for a large investor under partial information and price impact

This paper studies portfolio optimization problems in a market with partial information and price impact. We consider a large investor with an objective of expected utility maximization from terminal wealth. The drift of the underlying price process is modeled as a diffusion affected by a continuous-time Markov chain and the actions of the large investor. Using the stochastic filtering theory, we reduce the optimal control problem under partial information to the one with complete observation. For logarithmic and power utility cases we solve the utility maximization problem explicitly and we obtain optimal investment strategies in the feedback form. We compare the value functions to those for the case without price impact in Bäuerle and Rieder (IEEE Trans Autom Control 49(3):442–447, 2004) and Bäuerle and Rieder (J Appl Prob 362–378, 2005). It turns out that the investor would be better off due to the presence of a price impact both in complete-information and partial-information settings. Moreover, the presence of the price impact results in a shift, which depends on the distance to final time and on the state of the filter, on the optimal control strategy.     

汇率连动欧式幂型期权鞅定价及避险

研究了汇率连动选择权中执行价是本国货币的外国股票权证的欧式幂型期权的鞅定价问题,推导了其看涨、看跌定价公式,并求出了其相应的避险参数.