Bayesian semiparametric Markov switching stochastic volatility model

This paper proposes a novel Bayesian semiparametric stochastic volatility model with Markov switching regimes for modeling the dynamics of the financial returns. The distribution of the error term of the returns is modeled as an infinite mixture of Normals; meanwhile, the intercept of the volatility equation is allowed to switch between two regimes. The proposed model is estimated using a novel sequential Monte Carlo method called particle learning that is especially well suited for state‐space models. The model is tested on simulated data and, using real financial times series, compared to a model without the Markov switching regimes. The results show that including a Markov switching specification provides higher predictive power for the entire distribution, as well as in the tails of the distribution. Finally, the estimate of the persistence parameter decreases significantly, a finding consistent with previous empirical studies.     

Unifying pricing formula for several stochastic volatility models with jumps

In this paper, we introduce a unifying approach to option pricing under continuous‐time stochastic volatility models with jumps. For European style options, a new semi‐closed pricing formula is derived using the generalized complex Fourier transform of the corresponding partial integro‐differential equation. This approach is successfully applied to models with different volatility diffusion and jump processes. We also discuss how to price options with different payoff functions in a similar way. In particular, we focus on a log‐normal and a log‐uniform jump diffusion stochastic volatility model, originally introduced by Bates and Yan and Hanson, respectively. The comparison of existing and newly proposed option pricing formulas with respect to time efficiency and precision is discussed. We also derive a representation of an option price under a new approximative fractional jump diffusion model that differs from the aforementioned models, especially for the out‐of‐the money contracts. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

FFT based option pricing under a mean reverting process with stochastic volatility and jumps

Numerous studies present strong empirical evidence that certain financial assets may exhibit mean reversion, stochastic volatility or jumps. This paper explores the valuation of European options when the underlying asset follows a mean reverting log-normal process with stochastic volatility and jumps. A closed form representation of the characteristic function of the process is derived for the computation of European option prices via the fast Fourier transform.     

Bayesian modeling of financial returns: A relationship between volatility and trading volume

The modified mixture model with Markov switching volatility specification is introduced to analyze the relationship between stock return volatility and trading volume. We propose to construct an algorithm based on Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation methods to estimate all the parameters in the model using a Bayesian approach. The series of returns and trading volume of the British Petroleum stock will be analyzed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A mathematical analysis of the Gumbel test for jumps in stochastic volatility models

This article gives an exhaustive mathematical analysis of the Gumbel test for additive jump components based on extreme value theory. The Gumbel test was first introduced by Lee and Mykland in 2008 from an economical point of view. They consider a continuous-time stochastic volatility model with a general continuous volatility process and observe it under a high-frequency sampling scheme. The test statistics based on the maximum of increments converges to the Gumbel distribution under the null hypothesis of no additive jump component and to infinity otherwise. Our article presents a moment method based technique that provides some deeper mathematical insights into the convergence and divergence case of the test statistics. In the non-jump case we are able to prove the convergence to the Gumbel distribution under greatly weak assumptions: The volatility process has to be merely pathwise Hölder continuous with an arbitrary random Hölder exponent and we have no restrictions concerning an additional drift term. Therefore, for example, we are allowing for long and short-range dependence. In the case of existing additive jumps, we give divergence results in a general semimartingale setting and investigate the speed of divergence depending on the jump activity. As a by-product of our analysis we also deduce an optimal pathwise estimator for the spot volatility process. Moreover, we provide a detailed simulation study that compares the power of the Gumbel test with the power of the jump test proposed by Barndorff–Nielsen and Shephard in 2006 for Hölder exponents close to zero. Finally, both tests are applied to a real dataset.     

Derivative-free Greeks for the Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard stochastic volatility model

We derive derivative-free formulas for the Delta and other Greeks of options written on an asset modelled by a geometric Brownian motion with stochastic volatility of Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard type. The method applies the Malliavin calculus in Wiener space which moves differentiation of the payoff function of the option to a random weight function. Our method paves the way for simple Monte Carlo approaches, illustrated by several numerical examples.     

Application in stochastic volatility models of nonlinear regression with stochastic design

In regression model with stochastic design, the observations have been primarily treated as a simple random sample from a bivariate distribution. It is of enormous practical significance to generalize the situation to stochastic processes. In this paper, estimation and hypothesis testing problems in stochastic volatility model are considered, when the volatility depends on a nonlinear function of the state variable of other stochastic process, but the correlation coefficient |ρ|≠±1. The methods are applied to estimate the volatility of stock returns from Shanghai stock exchange. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bayesian modeling and forecasting of Value‐at‐Risk via threshold realized volatility

This study proposes a threshold realized generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (GARCH) model that jointly models daily returns and realized volatility, thereby taking into account the bias and asymmetry of realized volatility. We incorporate this threshold realized GARCH model with skew Student‐t innovations as the observation equation, view this model as a sharp transition model, and treat the realized volatility as a proxy for volatility under this nonlinear structure. Through the Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method, the model can jointly estimate the parameters in the return equation, the volatility equation, and the measurement equation. As an illustration, we conduct a simulation study and apply the proposed method to the US and Japan stock markets. Based on quantile forecasting and volatility estimation, we find that the threshold heteroskedastic framework with realized volatility successfully models the asymmetric dynamic structure. We also investigate the predictive ability of volatility by comparing the proposed model with the traditional GARCH model as well as some popular asymmetric GARCH and realized GARCH models. This threshold realized GARCH model with skew Student‐t innovations outperforms the competing risk models in out‐of‐sample volatility and Value‐at‐Risk forecasting.     

A Gridding Method for Bayesian Sequential Decision Problems

This article introduces a numerical method for finding optimal or approximately optimal decision rules and corresponding expected losses in Bayesian sequential decision problems. The method, based on the classical backward induction method, constructs a grid approximation to the expected loss at each decision time, viewed as a function of certain statistics of the posterior distribution of the parameter of interest. In contrast with most existing techniques, this method has a computation time which is linear in the number of stages in the sequential problem. It can also be applied to problems with insufficient statistics for the parameters of interest. Furthermore, it is well-suited to be implemented using parallel processors.     

A uniform asymptotic expansion for stochastic volatility model in pricing multi‐asset European options

In this paper, we consider a stochastic volatility model for pricing multi‐asset European options that are widely used in the real world, under the assumption that the volatilities are driven by different OU processes. Using the singular perturbation method for multi‐parameter and the boundary layer theory, we derive a uniform asymptotic expansion for the option prices, as well as the uniform error estimates. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Esscher transforms and other equivalent martingale measures for Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard stochastic volatility models with jumps

We compute and then discuss the Esscher martingale transform for exponential processes, the Esscher martingale transform for linear processes, the minimal martingale measure, the class of structure preserving martingale measures, and the minimum entropy martingale measure for stochastic volatility models of the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck type as introduced by Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard. We show that in the model with leverage, with jumps both in the volatility and in the returns, all those measures are different, whereas in the model without leverage, with jumps in the volatility only and a continuous return process, several measures coincide, some simplifications can be made and the results are more explicit. We illustrate our results with parametric examples used in the literature.     

An efficient ETD method for pricing American options under stochastic volatility with nonsmooth payoffs

Based on Cox and Matthews Exponential Time Differencing (ETD) approach, a fourth–order strongly–stable method having real distinct poles is developed and applied to solve American options under stochastic volatility with nonsmooth payoffs. A computationally efficient version of the method is constructed using partial fraction splitting technique. This approach requires to solve several backward Euler‐type linear systems at each time step. Numerical experiments are presented to demonstrate the computational efficiency, accuracy, and reliability of the method. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2013     

Abelian theorems for stochastic volatility models with application to the estimation of jump activity

In this paper, we prove a kind of Abelian theorem for a class of stochastic volatility models (X,V)$(X,V)$ where both the state process X$X$ and the volatility process V$V$ may have jumps. Our results relate the asymptotic behavior of the characteristic function of _XΔ$X_{\Delta }$ for some Δ>0$\Delta >0$ in a stationary regime to the Blumenthal–Getoor indexes of the Lévy processes driving the jumps in X$X$ and V$V$. The results obtained are used to construct consistent estimators for the above Blumenthal–Getoor indexes based on low-frequency observations of the state process X$X$. We derive convergence rates for the corresponding estimator and show that these rates cannot be improved in general.     

MCMC calibration of spot‐prices models in electricity markets

The calibration of some stochastic differential equation used to model spot prices in electricity markets is investigated. As an alternative to relying on standard likelihood maximization, the adoption of a fully Bayesian paradigm is explored, that relies on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) stochastic simulation and provides the posterior distributions of the model parameters. The proposed method is applied to one‐ and two‐factor stochastic models, using both simulated and real data. The results demonstrate good agreement between the maximum likelihood and MCMC point estimates. The latter approach, however, provides a more complete characterization of the model uncertainty, an information that can be exploited to obtain a more realistic assessment of the forecasting error. In order to further validate the MCMC approach, the posterior distribution of the Italian electricity price volatility is explored for different maturities and compared with the corresponding maximum likelihood estimates.     

Mean‐square stability of the backward Euler–Maruyama method for neutral stochastic delay differential equations with jumps

This paper is mainly considered whether the mean‐square stability of neutral stochastic delay differential equations (NSDDEs) with jumps is shared with that of the backward Euler–Maruyama method. Under the one‐sided Lipschitz condition and the linear growth condition, the trivial solution of NSDDEs with jumps is proved to be mean‐square stable by using the functional comparison principle and the Barbalat's lemma. It is shown that the backward Euler–Maruyama method can reproduce the mean‐square stability of the trivial solution under the same conditions. The implicit backward Euler–Maruyama method shows better characteristic than the explicit Euler–Maruyama method for the reason that it works without the linear growth condition on the drift coefficient. Compared with some existing results, our results do not need to add extra condition on the neutral part. The conclusions can be applied to NSDDEs and SDDEs with jumps. The effectiveness of the theoretical results is illustrated by an example. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new method for probabilistic assessments in power systems,combining monte carlo and stochastic‐algebraic methods

This article discusses a new methodology, which combines two efficient methods known as Monte Carlo (MC) and Stochastic‐algebraic (SA) methods for stochastic analyses and probabilistic assessments in electric power systems. The main idea is to use the advantages of each former method to cover the blind spots of the other. This new method is more efficient and more accurate than SA method and also faster than MC method while is less dependent of the sampling process. In this article, the proposed method and two other ones are used to obtain the probability density function of different variables in a power system. Different examples are studied to show the effectiveness of the hybrid method. The results of the proposed method are compared to the ones obtained using the MC and SA methods. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 100–110, 2015