A reduced form model for ESO valuation

In this paper we extend a reduced form model for the valuation of employee share options (ESOs) to incorporate employee departure, and company takeover. We also allow for performance linked vesting and other exotic features specific to ESOs. We clarify the assumptions underlying the reduced form model, and discuss their implications. We analyze the probabilistic structure of the model which includes an explicit characterization of the set of equivalent martingale measures, as well as the computation of the variance optimal martingale measure and the minimal martingale measure. Moreover, we deduce an additive decomposition of the relative entropy. Particular ESO specifications are studied emphasizing different aspects of the proposed framework. In this context, we also provide strict no-arbitrage bounds for ESO prices by applying optimal stopping. Furthermore, possible limitations of the proposed model are explored by examining departures from the crucial assumptions of no-arbitrage, i.e. by considering the effects of the employee having inside information.     

A Convenient Way to Characterize Equivalent Martingale Measures in Incomplete Markets

It is an empirical fact that the (empirically) relevant models for asset prices often describe markets that are incomplete in terms of their underlying assets, yielding many possible equivalent martingale measures under the no-arbitrage assumption. By using actual derivative prices, i.e., prices as observed in the market, additional information about the empirically relevant equivalent martingale measures might be obtained. In order to be able to process such information easily one needs a convenient way to represent all possible equivalent martingale measures in relation to derivative prices. In this paper we present such a convenient characterization. Conceptually, our characterization is not different from existing characterizations using, for example, Radon–Nikodym derivatives of martingale measures with respect to objective probabilities, but our characterization offers some advantages. The main advantage is that pricing derivatives is split up into two steps. The first step is solving a related complete markets pricing problem. This is a well-studied problem, so that it can easily be solved generally. In the second step a weighted average of the first step complete markets price must be calculated. Pricing under different equivalent martingale measures in the original market only differs with respect to the second step. The empirically relevant weighting can be determined by confronting the theoretical with the actually observed prices. As a byproduct we obtain a new and natural definition of idiosyncratic risk, which we show to be in line with the use of this term in the literature.To illustrate the ideas we discuss several examples. Among others we obtain the Hull–White formula for options on assets with stochastic volatility under close to minimal conditions that (for example) do not rely on a specification of the processes in terms of Itô diffusion.we relax the assumption of no-correlation between asset prices and volatilities in the Hull–White framework; we consider the case where the stochastic volatility does bear a risk-premium; we discuss pricing under stochastic interest rates; and we consider square-root type processes. All these pricing problems, and many more, can conveniently be handled using the approach based on our characterization of the equivalent martingale measures in continuous time markets that are incomplete in the underlying assets.     

Duality in option pricing based on prices of other derivatives

We clarify a financial meaning of duality in the semi-infinite programming problem which emerges in the context of determining a derivative price range based only on the no-arbitrage assumption and the observed prices of other derivatives. The interpretation links studies in the above context to studies in stochastic models.     

基于鞅测度的流动性风险溢价的测算

研究了在一般市场条件下流动性风险的定价问题.首先借助金融数学和金融工程的无套利思想在鞅测度下对市场风险和流动性风险进行定价,通过等价测度变换,使可交易资产的贴现价值过程转化为鞅过程,得到了市场风险和流动性风险的市场价格,进而给出了流动性风险溢价的计算公式.得到的风险的市场价格在同一市场中对于所有可交易资产都是相同的,并且这一价格对于所有投资者也都是相同的,不会因投资者的风险厌恶水平的不同而不同.     

The super-replication theorem under proportional transaction costs revisited

We consider a financial market with one riskless and one risky asset. The super-replication theorem states that there is no duality gap in the problem of super-replicating a contingent claim under transaction costs and the associated dual problem. We give two versions of this theorem. The first theorem relates a numéraire-based admissibility condition in the primal problem to the notion of a local martingale in the dual problem. The second theorem relates a numéraire-free admissibility condition in the primal problem to the notion of a uniformly integrable martingale in the dual problem.     

Martingale optimal transport and robust hedging in continuous time

The duality between the robust (or equivalently, model independent) hedging of path dependent European options and a martingale optimal transport problem is proved. The financial market is modeled through a risky asset whose price is only assumed to be a continuous function of time. The hedging problem is to construct a minimal super-hedging portfolio that consists of dynamically trading the underlying risky asset and a static position of vanilla options which can be exercised at the given, fixed maturity. The dual is a Monge–Kantorovich type martingale transport problem of maximizing the expected value of the option over all martingale measures that have a given marginal at maturity. In addition to duality, a family of simple, piecewise constant super-replication portfolios that asymptotically achieve the minimal super-replication cost is constructed.     

On the Monge–Kantorovich problem with additional linear constraints

The Monge–Kantorovich problem with the following additional constraint is considered: the admissible transportation plan must become zero on a fixed subspace of functions. Different subspaces give rise to different additional conditions on transportation plans. The main results are stated in general form and can be carried over to a number of important special cases. They are also valid for the Monge–Kantorovich problem whose solution is sought for the class of invariant or martingale measures. We formulate and prove a criterion for the existence of an optimal solution, a duality assertion of Kantorovich type, and a necessary geometric condition on the support of the optimal measure similar to the standard condition for c-monotonicity.     

Option Pricing Under Jump-Diffusion Processes with Regime Switching

We study an incomplete market model, based on jump-diffusion processes with parameters that are switched at random times. The set of equivalent martingale measures is determined. An analogue of the fundamental equation for the option price is derived. In the case of the two-state hidden Markov process we obtain explicit formulae for the option prices. Furthermore, we numerically compare the results corresponding to different equivalent martingale measures.     

Some Results on Skorokhod Embedding and Robust Hedging with Local Time

In this paper, we provide some results on Skorokhod embedding with local time and its applications to the robust hedging problem in finance. First we investigate the robust hedging of options depending on the local time by using the recently introduced stochastic control approach, in order to identify the optimal hedging strategies, as well as the market models that realize the extremal no-arbitrage prices. As a by-product, the optimality of Vallois’ Skorokhod embeddings is recovered. In addition, under appropriate conditions, we derive a new solution to the two-marginal Skorokhod embedding as a generalization of the Vallois solution. It turns out from our analysis that one needs to relax the monotonicity assumption on the embedding functions in order to embed a larger class of marginal distributions. Finally, in a full-marginal setting where the stopping times given by Vallois are well ordered, we construct a remarkable Markov martingale which provides a new example of fake Brownian motion.     

Convex duality in optimal investment under illiquidity

We study the problem of optimal investment by embedding it in the general conjugate duality framework of convex analysis. This allows for various extensions to classical models of liquid markets. In particular, we obtain a dual representation for the optimum value function in the presence of portfolio constraints and nonlinear trading costs that are encountered e.g. in modern limit order markets. The optimization problem is parameterized by a sequence of financial claims. Such a parameterization is essential in markets without a numeraire asset when pricing swap contracts and other financial products with multiple payout dates. In the special case of perfectly liquid markets or markets with proportional transaction costs, we recover well-known dual expressions in terms of martingale measures.     

No-arbitrage with multiple-priors in discrete time

In a discrete time and multiple-priors setting, we propose a new characterisation of the condition of quasi-sure no-arbitrage which has become a standard assumption. We show that it is equivalent to the existence of a subclass of priors having the same polar sets as the initial class and such that the uni-prior no-arbitrage holds true for all priors in this subset. This characterisation shows that it is indeed a well-chosen condition being equivalent to several previously used alternative notions of no-arbitrage and allowing the proof of important results in mathematical finance. We also revisit the geometric and quantitative no-arbitrage conditions and explicit two important examples where all these concepts are illustrated.     

Coupling and option price comparisons in a jump-diffusion model

In this paper, we examine the dependence of option prices in a general jump-diffusion model on the choice of martingale pricing measure. Since the model is incomplete, there are many equivalent martingale measures. Each of these measures corresponds to a choice for the market price of diffusion risk and the market price of jump risk. Our main result is to show that for convex payoffs, the option price is increasing in the jump-risk parameter. We apply this result to deduce general inequalities, comparing the prices of contingent claims under various martingale measures, which have been proposed in the literature as candidate pricing measures.

Our proofs are based on couplings of stochastic processes. If there is only one possible jump size then we are able to utilize a second coupling to extend our results to include stochastic jump intensities.     

On the no-arbitrage condition in option implied trees

The aim of this paper is to discuss the no-arbitrage condition in option implied trees based on forward induction and to propose a no-arbitrage test that rules out the negative probabilities problem and hence enhances the pricing performance. The no-arbitrage condition takes into account two main features: the position of the node in the tree and the relation between the dividend yield and the risk-free rate. The proposed methodology is tested in and out of sample with Italian index options data and findings support a good pricing performance.     

No-arbitrage theorem for multi-factor uncertain stock model with floating interest rate

In the stock models, the prices of the stocks are usually described via some differential equations. So far, uncertain stock model with constant interest rate has been proposed, and a sufficient and necessary condition for it being no-arbitrage has also been derived. This paper considers the multiple risks in the interest rate market and stock market, and proposes a multi-factor uncertain stock model with floating interest rate. A no-arbitrage theorem is derived in the form of determinants, presenting a sufficient and necessary condition for the new stock model being no-arbitrage. In addition, a strategy for the arbitrage is provided when the condition is not satisfied.     

Asymptotic asset pricing and bubbles

We define the concept of asymptotic superreplication, and prove a duality principle of asset pricing for sequences of financial markets (e.g., weakly converging financial markets and large financial markets) based on contiguous sequences of equivalent local martingale measures. This provides a pricing mechanism to calculate the fundamental value of a financial asset in the asymptotic market. We introduce the notion of asymptotic bubbles by showing that this fundamental value can be strictly lower than the current price of the asset. In the case of weakly converging markets, we show that this fundamental value is equal to an expectation of the terminal value of the asset in the weak-limit market. From a practical perspective, we relate the asymptotic superreplication price to a limit of quantile-hedging prices. This shows that even when a price process is a true martingale, it can have properties similar to a bubble, up to a set of small probability. For practical applications, we give examples of weakly converging discrete-time models (e.g. some GARCH models) and large financial models that present bubbles.     

Duality in infinite dimensional linear programming

We consider the class of linear programs with infinitely many variables and constraints having the property that every constraint contains at most finitely many variables while every variable appears in at most finitely many constraints. Examples include production planning and equipment replacement over an infinite horizon. We form the natural dual linear programming problem and prove strong duality under a transversality condition that dual prices are asymptotically zero. That is, we show, under this transversality condition, that optimal solutions are attained in both primal and dual problems and their optimal values are equal. The transversality condition, and hence strong duality, is established for an infinite horizon production planning problem.This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ECS-8700836.     

A market-based martingale valuation approach to optimum inventory control in a doubly stochastic jump-diffusion economy

We propose a novel market-based approach to optimum inventory control in a doubly stochastic jump-diffusion economy by modelling a commodity distributor’s inventory investment as a portfolio of forward commitments with explicit accounting of the jump-diffusion dynamics of demands, costs, and prices in open markets. We apply the robust real-asset martingale valuation methodology to derive a closed-form solution for the inventory value and a simple and intuitive optimality condition. Numerical analysis verifies this condition and demonstrates that the resulting optimum policy has robust properties in relation to the stylized effects.     

均衡约束数学规划问题的一类广义Mond-Weir型对偶理论

针对均衡约束数学规划模型难以满足约束规范及难于求解的问题,基于Mond和Weir提出的标准非线性规划的对偶形式,利用其S稳定性,建立了均衡约束数学规划问题的一类广义Mond-Weir型对偶,从而为求解均衡约束优化问题提供了一种新的方法.在Hanson-Mond广义凸性条件下,利用次线性函数,分别提出了弱对偶性、强对偶性和严格逆对偶性定理,并给出了相应证明.该对偶化方法的推广为研究均衡约束数学规划问题的解提供了理论依据.     

Diffusion Processes Associated with Nonlinear Evolution Equations for Signed Measures

In this paper, we explain how to associate a nonlinear martingale problem with some nonlinear parabolic evolution equations starting at bounded signed measures. Our approach generalizes the classical link made when the initial condition is a probability measure. It consists in giving to each sample-path a signed weight which depends on the initial position. After dealing with the classical McKean-Vlasov equation as an introductory example, we are interested in a viscous scalar conservation law. We prove uniqueness for the corresponding nonlinear martingale problem and then obtain existence thanks to a propagation of chaos result for a system of weakly interacting diffusion processes. Last, we study the behavior of the associated fluctuations and present numerical results which confirm the theoretical rate of convergence.     

A new geometric condition for Fenchel's duality in infinite dimensional spaces

In 1951, Fenchel discovered a special duality, which relates the minimization of a sum of two convex functions with the maximization of the sum of concave functions, using conjugates. Fenchel's duality is central to the study of constrained optimization. It requires an existence of an interior point of a convex set which often has empty interior in optimization applications. The well known relaxations of this requirement in the literature are again weaker forms of the interior point condition. Avoiding an interior point condition in duality has so far been a difficult problem. However, a non-interior point type condition is essential for the application of Fenchel's duality to optimization. In this paper we solve this problem by presenting a simple geometric condition in terms of the sum of the epigraphs of conjugate functions. We also establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the ε-subdifferential sum formula in terms of the sum of the epigraphs of conjugate functions. Our results offer further insight into Fenchel's duality. Dedicated to Terry Rockafellar on his 70th birthday