Multifactor Heston's stochastic volatility model for European option pricing

In this study, we extend the multiscale stochastic volatility model of [Fouque J‐P, Lorig MJ, SIAM J Financial Math. 2011;2(1):221‐254] by incorporating a slow varying factor of volatility. The resulting model can be viewed as a multifactor extension of the Heston model with two additional factors driving the volatility levels. An asymptotic analysis consisting of singular and regular perturbation expansions is developed to obtain an approximation to European option prices. We also find explicit expressions for some essential functions that are available only in integral formulas in the work of [Fouque J‐P, Lorig MJ, SIAM J Financial Math. 2011;2(1):221‐254]. This finding basically leads to considerable reduction in computational time for numerical calculation as well as calibration problems. An accuracy result of the asymptotic approximation is also provided. For numerical illustration, the multifactor Heston model is calibrated to index options on the market, and we find that the resulting implied volatility surfaces fit the market data better than those produced by the multiscale stochastic volatility model of [Fouque J‐P, Lorig MJ, SIAM J Financial Math. 2011;2(1):221‐254], particularly for long‐maturity call options.     

New approach and analysis of the generalized constant elasticity of variance model

Generally, it is well known that the constant elasticity of variance (CEV) model fails to capture the empirical results verifying that the implied volatility of equity options displays smile and skew curves at the same time. In this study, to overcome the limitation of the CEV model, we introduce a new model, which is a generalization of the CEV model, and show that it can capture the smile and skew effects of implied volatility. Using an asymptotic analysis for two small parameters that determine the volatility shape, we obtain approximated solutions for option prices in the extended model. In addition, we demonstrate the stability of the solution for the expansion of the option price. Furthermore, we show the convergence rate of the solutions in Monte-Carlo simulation and compare our model with the CEV, Heston, and other extended stochastic volatility models to verify its flexibility and efficiency compared with these other models when fitting option data from the S&P 500 index.     

American Options in the Heston Model with Stochastic Interest Rate and Its Generalizations

Abstract

We consider the Heston model with the stochastic interest rate of Cox–Ingersoll–Ross (CIR) type and more general models with stochastic volatility and interest rates depending on two CIR-factors; the price, volatility and interest rate may correlate. Time-derivative and infinitesimal generator of the process for factors that determine the dynamics of the interest rate and/or volatility are discretized. The result is a sequence of embedded perpetual options arising in the time discretization of a Markov-modulated Lévy model. Options in this sequence are solved using an iteration method based on the Wiener–Hopf factorization. Typical shapes of the early exercise boundary are shown, and good agreement of option prices with prices calculated with the Longstaff–Schwartz method and Medvedev–Scaillet asymptotic method is demonstrated.     

An analytic pricing formula for lookback options under stochastic volatility

In this work, an analytic pricing formula for floating strike lookback options under Heston’s stochastic volatility model is derived by means of the homotopy analysis method. The fixed strike lookback options can then be priced on the basis of the results of floating strike and the put–call parity relation for lookback options.     

Pricing VIX options in a stochastic vol‐of‐vol model

This paper proposes and makes a study of a new model for volatility index option pricing. Factors such as mean‐reversion, jumps, and stochastic volatility are taken into consideration. In particular, the positive volatility skew is addressed by the jump and the stochastic volatility of volatility. Daily calibration is used to check whether the model fits market prices and generates positive volatility skews. Overall, the results show that the mean‐reverting logarithmic jump and stochastic volatility model (called MRLRJSV in the paper) serves as the best model in all the required aspects. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Heston stochastic volatility model in Hilbert space

We extend the Heston stochastic volatility model to a Hilbert space framework. The tensor Heston stochastic variance process is defined as a tensor product of a Hilbert-valued Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process with itself. The volatility process is then defined by a Cholesky decomposition of the variance process. We define a Hilbert-valued Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process with Wiener noise perturbed by this stochastic volatility, and compute the characteristic functional and covariance operator of this process. This process is then applied to the modeling of forward curves in energy and commodity markets. Finally, we compute the dynamics of the tensor Heston volatility model when the generator is bounded, and study its projection down to the real line for comparison with the classical Heston dynamics.     

A closed form solution for vulnerable options with Heston’s stochastic volatility

Over-the-counter stock markets in the world have been growing rapidly and vulnerability to default risks of option holders traded in the over-the-counter markets became an important issue, in particular, since the global finance crisis and Eurozone crisis. This paper studies the pricing of European-type vulnerable options when the underlying asset follows the Heston dynamics. In this paper, we obtain a closed form analytic formula of the option price as a stochastic volatility extension of the classical Heston formula and find how the stochastic volatility effect on the Black–Scholes price as well as on the decreasing speed of the option price with credit risk depends on moneyness.     

Option prices under stochastic volatility

The well known Heston model for stochastic volatility captures the reality of the motion of stock prices in our financial market. However, the solution of this model is expressed as integrals in the complex plane and has difficulties in numerical evaluation. Here, we present closed-form solutions for option prices and implied volatilities in terms of series expansions. We show that our theoretical predictions are in remarkably good agreement with numerical solutions of the Heston model of stochastic volatility.     

Market calibration under a long memory stochastic volatility model

In this article, we study a long memory stochastic volatility model (LSV), under which stock prices follow a jump-diffusion stochastic process and its stochastic volatility is driven by a continuous-time fractional process that attains a long memory. LSV model should take into account most of the observed market aspects and unlike many other approaches, the volatility clustering phenomenon is captured explicitly by the long memory parameter. Moreover, this property has been reported in realized volatility time-series across different asset classes and time periods. In the first part of the article, we derive an alternative formula for pricing European securities. The formula enables us to effectively price European options and to calibrate the model to a given option market. In the second part of the article, we provide an empirical review of the model calibration. For this purpose, a set of traded FTSE 100 index call options is used and the long memory volatility model is compared to a popular pricing approach – the Heston model. To test stability of calibrated parameters and to verify calibration results from previous data set, we utilize multiple data sets from NYSE option market on Apple Inc. stock.     

A Note on the Discontinuity Problem in Heston's Stochastic Volatility Model

Although quasi‐analytic formulas can be derived for European‐style financial claims in Heston's stochastic volatility model, the inverse Fourier integration involved makes the calculation somewhat complicated. This challenge has puzzled practitioners for many years because most implementations of Heston's formula are not robust, even for customarily‐used Heston parameters, as time to maturity is increased. In this article, a simplified approach is proposed to solve the numerical instability problem inherent to the fundamental solution of the Heston model. Specifically, the solution does not require any additional function or a particular mechanism for most software packages or programming library routines to correctly evaluate Heston's analytics.     

Modelling stochastic skew of FX options using SLV models with stochastic spot/vol correlation and correlated jumps

It is known that the implied volatility skew of Forex (FX) options demonstrates a stochastic behaviour which is called stochastic skew. In this paper, we create stochastic skew by assuming the spot/instantaneous variance (InV) correlation to be stochastic. Accordingly, we consider a class of Stochastic Local Volatility (SLV) models with stochastic correlation where all drivers – the spot, InV and their correlation – are modelled by processes. We assume all diffusion components to be fully correlated, as well as all jump components. A new fully implicit splitting finite-difference scheme is proposed for solving forward PIDE which is used when calibrating the model to market prices of the FX options with different strikes and maturities. The scheme is unconditionally stable, of second order of approximation in time and space, and achieves a linear complexity in each spatial direction. The results of simulation obtained by using this model demonstrate the capacity of the presented approach in modelling stochastic skew.     

A delayed stochastic volatility correction to the constant elasticity of variance model

The Black-Scholes model does not account non-Markovian property and volatility smile or skew although asset price might depend on the past movement of the asset price and real market data can find a non-flat structure of the implied volatility surface. So, in this paper, we formulate an underlying asset model by adding a delayed structure to the constant elasticity of variance (CEV) model that is one of renowned alternative models resolving the geometric issue. However, it is still one factor volatility model which usually does not capture full dynamics of the volatility showing discrepancy between its predicted price and market price for certain range of options. Based on this observation we combine a stochastic volatility factor with the delayed CEV structure and develop a delayed hybrid model of stochastic and local volatilities. Using both a martingale approach and a singular perturbation method, we demonstrate the delayed CEV correction effects on the European vanilla option price under this hybrid volatility model as a direct extension of our previous work [12].     

模糊集理论在随机波动率期权定价中的应用

目的是对基于随机波动率模型的期权定价问题应用模糊集理论.主要思想是把波动率的概率表示转换为可能性表示,从而把关于股票价格的带随机波动率的随机过程简化为带模糊参数的随机过程.然后建立非线性偏微分方程对欧式期权进行定价.     

Pricing Volatility Swaps Under Heston's Stochastic Volatility Model with Regime Switching

A model is developed for pricing volatility derivatives, such as variance swaps and volatility swaps under a continuous‐time Markov‐modulated version of the stochastic volatility (SV) model developed by Heston. In particular, it is supposed that the parameters of this version of Heston's SV model depend on the states of a continuous‐time observable Markov chain process, which can be interpreted as the states of an observable macroeconomic factor. The market considered is incomplete in general, and hence, there is more than one equivalent martingale pricing measure. The regime switching Esscher transform used by Elliott et al. is adopted to determine a martingale pricing measure for the valuation of variance and volatility swaps in this incomplete market. Both probabilistic and partial differential equation (PDE) approaches are considered for the valuation of volatility derivatives.     

Pricing VIX options with stochastic skew and asymmetric jumps

This paper performs several empirical exercises to provide evidence that the stochas-tic skew behavior and asymmetric jumps exist in VIX markets.In order to adequately capture all of the features,we develop a general valuation model and obtain quasi-analytical solutions for pricing VIX options.In addition,we make comparative studies of alternative models to illustrate the e ects after taking into account these features on the valuation of VIX options and investigate the relative value of an additional volatility factor and jump components.The empirical results indicate that the multi-factor volatility structure is vital to VIX option pricing due to providing more exibility in the modeling of VIX dynamics,and the need for asymmetric jumps cannot be eliminated by an additional volatility factor.     

A semi-analytic pricing formula for lookback options under a general stochastic volatility model

In general, the pricing problems of exotic options in finance do not have analytic solutions under stochastic volatility and so it is hard to compute the option prices or at least it requires much of time to compute them. This paper investigates a semi-analytic pricing method for lookback options in a general stochastic volatility framework. The resultant formula is well connected to the Black–Scholes price that is the first term of a series expansion, which makes computing the option prices relatively efficient. Further, a convergence condition for the expansion is provided with an error bound.     

American option pricing under stochastic volatility: an empirical evaluation

Over the past few years, model complexity in quantitative finance has increased substantially in response to earlier approaches that did not capture critical features for risk management. However, given the preponderance of the classical Black–Scholes model, it is still not clear that this increased complexity is matched by additional accuracy in the ultimate result. In particular, the last decade has witnessed a flurry of activity in modeling asset volatility, and studies evaluating different alternatives for option pricing have focused on European-style exercise. In this paper, we extend these empirical evaluations to American options, as their additional opportunity for early exercise may incorporate stochastic volatility in the pricing differently. Specifically, the present work compares the empirical pricing and hedging performance of the commonly adopted stochastic volatility model of Heston (Rev Financial Stud 6:327–343, 1993) against the traditional constant volatility benchmark of Black and Scholes (J Polit Econ 81:637–659, 1973). Using S&P 100 index options data, our study indicates that this particular stochastic volatility model offers enhancements in line with their European-style counterparts for in-the-money options. However, the most striking improvements are for out-of-the-money options, which because of early exercise are more valuable than their European-style counterparts, especially when volatility is stochastic.     

Valuation of guaranteed annuity options using a stochastic volatility model for equity prices

Guaranteed annuity options are options providing the right to convert a policyholder’s accumulated funds to a life annuity at a fixed rate when the policy matures. These options were a common feature in UK retirement savings contracts issued in the 1970’s and 1980’s when interest rates were high, but caused problems for insurers as the interest rates began to fall in the 1990’s. Currently, these options are frequently sold in the US and Japan as part of variable annuity products. The last decade the literature on pricing and risk management of these options evolved. Until now, for pricing these options generally a geometric Brownian motion for equity prices is assumed. However, given the long maturities of the insurance contracts a stochastic volatility model for equity prices would be more suitable. In this paper explicit expressions are derived for prices of guaranteed annuity options assuming stochastic volatility for equity prices and either a 1-factor or 2-factor Gaussian interest rate model. The results indicate that the impact of ignoring stochastic volatility can be significant.     

On the application of Wishart process to the pricing of equity derivatives: the multi-asset case

Given the inherent complexity of financial markets, a wide area of research in the field of mathematical finance is devoted to develop accurate models for the pricing of contingent claims. Focusing on the stochastic volatility approach (i.e. we assume to describe asset volatility as an additional stochastic process), it appears desirable to introduce reliable dynamics in order to take into account the presence of several assets involved in the definition of multi-asset payoffs. In this article we deal with the multi asset Wishart Affine Stochastic Correlation model, that makes use of Wishart process to describe the stochastic variance covariance matrix of assets return. The resulting parametrization turns out to be a genuine multi-asset extension of the Heston model: each asset is exactly described by a single instance of the Heston dynamics while the joint behaviour is enriched by cross-assets and cross-variances stochastic correlation, all wrapped in an affine modeling. In this framework, we propose a fast and accurate calibration procedure, and two Monte Carlo simulation schemes.