Asymptotic arbitrage in large financial markets with friction

In the modern version of arbitrage pricing theory suggested by Kabanov and Kramkov the fundamental financially meaningful concept is an asymptotic arbitrage. The ??real world?? large market is represented by a sequence of ??models?? and, though each of them is arbitrage free, investors may obtain non-risky profits in the limit. Mathematically, absence of the asymptotic arbitrage is expressed as contiguity of envelopes of the sets of equivalent martingale measures and objective probabilities. The classical theory deals with frictionless markets. In the present paper we extend it to markets with transaction costs. Assuming that each model admits consistent price systems, we relate them with families of probability measures and consider their upper and lower envelopes. The main result concerns the necessary and sufficient conditions for absence of asymptotic arbitrage opportunities of the first and second kinds expressed in terms of contiguity. We provide also more specific conditions involving Hellinger processes and give applications to particular models of large financial markets.     

Complexity models in financial markets

In this approach, the complexity of the self-organizing microstructure of the stock exchange is explicitly taken into consideration: the process of offers and trades as well as the adjustment of individual expectations are modelled with help of a (stochastic) jump process. Its abilities are illustrated by modelling the continuous quotations of asset prices at an auction type stock exchange. The functional form of the transition (hazard) rates is chosen to reflect the individual preferences and expectations as well as the economic environment. The model is described in detail and examples of Monte Carlo simulation results are presented.     

Illiquid financial market models and absence of arbitrage

We study financial market models with different liquidity effects. In the first part of this paper, we extend the short-term price impact model introduced by Rogers and Singh (2007) to a general semimartingale setup. We show the convergence of the discrete-time into the continuous-time modeling framework when trading times approach each other. In the second part, arbitrage opportunities in illiquid economies are considered, in particular a modification of the feedback effect model of Bank and Baum (2004). We demonstrate that a large trader cannot create wealth at no risk within this framework. Here we have to assume that the price process is described by a continuous semimartingale.     

Markovian networks in labour markets

In labour theory, equilibrium is described in terms of mean variables, which is limited and can be misleading. In this article, we model the labour market as a closed Markovian network and find the steady state distribution of unemployment and advertised vacancies. We determine the stochastic equilibrium distribution for two different types of matching functions and allow for both unemployed and on the job search. In general cases, where probabilities cannot be analytically computed, we find restrictions that must hold for all matching processes. Our modelling is applicable to most economic markets with frictions.     

On Markovian decision models with a finite skeleton

We present a class of countable state space Markovian decision models that can be investigated by means of an associated finite-state, finite-action reduced model which we call the skeleton. In particular, we obtain a turnpike theorem for the original model (Theorem 2 in Section 5) from a known turnpike theorem for the reduced finite model. For illustration, we present in detail an application of this approach to an inventory model (re-establishing a known turnpike result) and sketch analogous results for a cash-balance model and a growth model.

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Zusammenfassung Wir führen eine Klasse von Markovschen Entscheidungsmodellen mit abzählbarem Zustandsraum ein, die mittels eines verbundenen, reduzierten Modells mit endlichem Zustands- und Aktionsraum, welches wir das Skelett nennen, untersucht werden können. Insbesondere erhalten wir ein Turnpike Theorem für das ursprüngliche Modell (Theorem 2 im Abschnitt 5) von einem bekannten Turnpike Theorem für das reduzierte endliche Modell. Zur Erläuterung stellen wir im einzelnen eine Anwendung dieses Ansatzes für ein Lagerhaltungsmodell (Wiederherleitung eines bekannten Turnpike Ergebnisses) dar, und wir skizzieren analoge Ergebnisse für ein Kassenhaltungsmodell und ein Wachstumsmodell.

     

On pricing and hedging in financial markets with long-range dependence

We study a mixed financial market with risky asset governed by both the standard Brownian motion and the fractional Brownian motion with Hurst index H ? (frac12, 1){Hin(frac12, 1)}. We use representations of Hitsuda and Cheridito for the mixed Brownian and fractional Brownian process and present the solution of the problem of efficient hedging for H ? (frac34, 1){Hin(frac34, 1)}. To solve the problem for H ? (frac12, 1){Hin(frac12, 1)} and to avoid some computational difficulties, we introduce the approximate incomplete semimartingale market, and the solution of the approximate problem of efficient hedging is considered. Then we pass to the limit and observe the asymptotic behavior of the solution of the efficient hedging problem.     

Informational inefficiency in financial markets

The existence of an informational inefficiency in the equity market is identified by analysing information publicly available on the internet. A large volume of blog data is used for this purpose. Informational inefficiency is established by converting company-specific blog sentiment data into a trading strategy and analysing its performance. An information-based model that approximately replicates the strategy is developed to estimate the degree of information disparity. The result shows that an efficient internet search engine can considerably enhance market efficiency, as measured in terms of the information flow rate.     

Cooperation in Markovian queueing models

In this paper we study some cooperative models in Markovian queues. We stress the case of several agents agreeing to maintain a common server for their populations in which a priority scheme with preemption has been established. In this situation we propose and characterize an allocation rule for the holding costs that provides core allocations.     

Optimal consumption and arbitrage in incomplete,finite state security markets

We study a consistent treatment for both the multi-period portfolio selection problem and the option attainability problem by a dual approach. We assume that time is discrete, the horizon is finite, the sample space is finite and the number of securities is less than that of the possible securities price transitions, i.e. an incomplete security market. The investor is prohibited from investing stocks more than given linear investment amount constraints at any time and he maximizes an expected additive utility function for the consumption process. First we give a set of budget feasibility conditions so that a consumption process is attainable by an admissible portfolio process. To establish this relation, we used an algorithmic approach which has a close connection with the linear programming duality. Then we prove the unique existence of a primal optimal solution from the budget feasibility conditions. Finally, we formulate a dual control problem and establish the duality between primal and dual control problems.We are grateful to the editor, Hiroshi Konno, and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and constructive suggestions on this research. We are responsible for the remaining errors. The first author is supported in part by the fund endowed to the Research Association for Financial Engineering by Toyo Trust Bank Co. and Mito Shoken Co.     

Asymptotic pricing in large financial markets

The problem of hedging and pricing sequences of contingent claims in large financial markets is studied. Connection between asymptotic arbitrage and behavior of the α-quantile price is shown. The large Black–Scholes model is carefully examined.      

Rough paths in idealized financial markets

This paper considers possible price paths of a financial security in an idealized market. Its main result is that the variation index of typical price paths is at most 2; in this sense, typical price paths are not rougher than typical paths of Brownian motion. We do not make any stochastic assumptions and only assume that the price path is right-continuous. The qualification “typical” means that there is a trading strategy (constructed explicitly in the proof) that risks only one monetary unit but brings infinite capital when the variation index of the realized price path exceeds 2. The paper also reviews some known results for continuous price paths.     

Nonlinearity in the dynamics of financial markets

A new set of methodologies extracts key nonlinearities in the dynamics of financial markets from data that would appear to be completely random with ordinary linear time series methods. The understanding acquired from this analysis forms a basis for modeling conflicting and competing motivations in market decisions. By standardizing the daily changes using the mean and standard deviation, it then becomes possible to compare the quantitative impact of very different variables such as price trend and valuation, and the nonlinear relationship between them. The analysis of a large data set of closing stock prices provides strong statistical evidence that relative daily price change is positively influenced by valuation, recent price trend, short term volatility, volume trend and the M2 money supply. However, there is a strong nonlinearity in the influence of the price trend, so that a significantly large recent uptrend has a negative influence on the subsequent day’s relative price change. The nonlinearity is the key to understanding the conflicting role of price trend, since a single large data set exhibits both underreaction and overreaction in different regimes of the independent variables. The role of long term volatility is not a clear-cut risk/return inverse relation. But rather there is an ambiguous and complicated relationship between volatility and return. There is limited support for resistance when prices near the quarterly high. Mixed effects regressions are used after standardizing the data by subtracting the mean and dividing by one standard deviation individually for each of the 119 closed-end funds. A valuation variable is constructed in terms of the recent history of net asset value.     

On the equivalence of financial structures with long-term assets

In a stochastic financial exchange economy, two financial structures are equivalent if, for each given state price, the marketable payoffs are identical for the associated asset prices. The key property of two equivalent financial structures is that, when associated with any standard exchange economy, they lead to the same financial equilibrium. We exhibit a sufficient condition for the equivalence of two financial structures without re-trading with possibly long-term assets. We then apply this result to financial structures built upon primitive assets and their re-trading. We also borrow an assumption from Bonnisseau and Chéry (Ann Financ 10:523–552, 2014) to prove the equivalence between a financial structure and its reduced forms.     

Volatility of volatility of financial markets

We present empirical evidence for considering volatility of Eurodollar futures as a stochastic process, requiring a generalization of the standard Black-Scholes (BS) model which treats volatility as a constant. We use a previous development of a statistical mechanics of financial markets (SMFM) to model these issues.     

On price competition in location-price models with spatially separated markets

In this paper we study price competition for two types of location-price models in which facility locations are set up and price decisions have to be made in order to maximise profit. We discuss the existence and determination of equilibrium prices in a general location space when facilities have different production costs. It is assumed that each price is bounded from below and demand for a single homogeneous product is price-inelastic. When facilities set mill prices, a price equilibrium rarely exists and necessary conditions for existence are obtained. In particular, when the location space is a tree network, we give a characterisation of the locations for which a unique equilibrium exists for two competitors. With spatial price discrimination, though equilibrium prices might not exist, it is shown that ε-equilibrium prices always exist for any locations of the facilities. A characterisation of ε-equilibrium is also given. Then the location-price problem is reduced to a location problem. A comparison of results with the two types of price determination is also presented. This work has been supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain under the research project BEC2002-01026, in part financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).     

Models for bundle trading in financial markets

Bundle trading is a new trend in financial markets that allows traders to submit consolidated orders to sell and buy packages of assets. We propose a new bundle-based market-clearing formulation for portfolio balancing that extends the previous models in the literature through a more detailed representation of portfolios and the formulation of new bidding requirements. We also present post-optimality tie-breaking procedures intended to discriminate between equivalent orders on the basis of submission times. Numerical results evaluate the “bundle” effect as well as the bidding flexibility and the computational complexity of the formulation.     

Introduction to convex optimization in financial markets

Convexity arises naturally in financial risk management. In risk preferences concerning random cash-flows, convexity corresponds to the fundamental diversification principle. Convexity is a basic property also of budget constraints both in classical linear models as well as in more realistic models with transaction costs and constraints. Moreover, modern securities markets are based on trading protocols that result in convex trading costs. The first part of this paper gives an introduction to certain basic concepts and principles of financial risk management in simple optimization terms. The second part reviews some convex optimization techniques used in mathematical and numerical analysis of financial optimization problems.     

Robust profit opportunities in risky financial portfolios

For risky financial securities with given expected return vector and covariance matrix, we propose the concept of a robust profit opportunity in single- and multiple-period settings. We show that the problem of finding the “most robust” profit opportunity can be solved as a convex quadratic programming problem, and investigate its relation to the Sharpe ratio.