A Simple Derivation of and Improvements to Jamshidian's and Rogers' Upper Bound Methods for Bermudan Options

The additive method for upper bounds for Bermudan options is rephrased in terms of buyer's and seller's prices. It is shown how to deduce Jamshidian's upper bound result in a simple fashion from the additive method, including the case of possibly zero final pay‐off. Both methods are improved by ruling out exercise at sub‐optimal points. It is also shown that it is possible to use sub‐Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the value of the hedging portfolio at intermediate points in the Jamshidian method without jeopardizing its status as upper bound.     

Pricing of perpetual American and Bermudan options by binomial tree method

In this paper, we consider the binomial tree method for pricing perpetual American and perpetual Bermudan options. The closed form solutions of these discrete models are solved. Explicit formulas for the optimal exercise boundary of the perpetual American option is obtained. A nonlinear equation that is satisfied by the optimal exercise boundaries of the perpetual Bermudan option is found.      

Analytic solution for American barrier options with two barriers

This paper concerns American barrier options with two barriers. Standard American Options are difficult to price but there exist good numerical or analytical approximation methods. The situation is different for American barrier options. These options cease to exist or come into being if some price barrier is hit during the option's life. The paper studies analytic valuation of American barrier options with two barriers where the barriers become active by turns. In this paper, analytic valuation formulas for these options are derived by using both constant and exponential barriers for optimal early exercise policies.     

Valuation of employee stock options using the exercise multiple approach and life tables

Employee stock options (ESOs) are common in performance-based employee remuneration. Financial reporting standards such as IFRS2 and AASB2 require public corporations to report on the cost of providing ESOs, and mandate the incorporation of voluntary and involuntary early exercise. In this paper we extend the exercise multiple approach of Hull and White (2004) and decompose the attrition unadjusted voluntary exercise ESO into a gap call option and two partial-time barrier options. We use exit probabilities obtained from empirically determined multiple decrement or life tables to model involuntary early exercise or forfeiture. We provide a new analytic valuation formula which expresses the ESO value in terms of a portfolio of exotic European bivariate power options and which correctly accounts for both voluntary exercise and employee attrition. Recent approaches seek to model employee attrition using a constant hazard rate. Our approach uses an empirically driven actuarial method for incorporating employee attrition in the valuation.     

Calibration of options on a reduced basis

Calibration of models is an important step in financial engineering. However it can be costly, especially in view of the increasing complexity of the models.In this paper we explore the use of reduced basis as is done in fluid mechanics for the Navier-Stokes equations or as proposed by Maday, Patera and Turinici [Y. Maday et al., A priori convergence theory for reduced-basis approximations of single-parameter elliptic partial differential equations, J. Sci. Comput. 17 (1-4) (2002) 437-446]. It is shown that the method works well if we use convex combination of the basis functions instead of the more general linear combination; however, while this idea makes sense in view of the properties of the Black-Scholes equation, we have no proof to general linear combination; however, while this idea makes sense in view of the properties of the Black-Scholes equation, we have no proof to justify it mathematically.The paper presents a numerical investigation of the problem posed.     

A product integration method for the approximation of the early exercise boundary in the American option pricing problem

Integral equation methods are now becoming well‐established tools in the study of financial models used in theory and practice. In this paper, we investigate the fully nonlinear weakly singular nonstandard Volterra integral equations representing the early exercise boundary of American option contracts, which gained popularity in recent years. We propose a product integration approach based on linear barycentric rational interpolation to solve the problem. The price of the option will then be computed using the obtained approximation of the early exercise boundary and a barycentric rational quadrature. The convergence of the approximation scheme will also be analyzed. Finally, some numerical experiments based on the introduced method are presented and compared with some exiting approaches.     

The discontinuous Galerkin method for discretely observed Asian options

Asian options represent an important subclass of the path-dependent contracts that are identified by payoff depending on the average of the underlying asset prices over the prespecified period of option lifetime. Commonly, this average is observed at discrete dates, and also, early exercise features can be admitted. As a result, analytical pricing formulae are not always available. Therefore, some form of a numerical approximation is essential for efficient option valuation. In this paper, we study a PDE model for pricing discretely observed arithmetic Asian options with fixed as well as floating strike for both European and American exercise features. The pricing equation for such options is similar to the Black-Scholes equation with 1 underlying asset, and the corresponding average appears only in the jump conditions across the sampling dates. The objective of the paper is to present the comprehensive methodological concept that forms and improves the valuation process. We employ a robust numerical procedure based on the discontinuous Galerkin approach arising from the piecewise polynomial generally discontinuous approximations. This technique enables a simple treatment of discrete sampling by incorporation of jump conditions at each monitoring date. Moreover, an American early exercise constraint is directly handled as an additional nonlinear source term in the pricing equation. The proposed solving procedure is accompanied by an empirical study with practical results compared to reference values.     

Pathwise superhedging for time-dependent barrier options on càdlàg paths—Finite or infinite tradeable European,One-Touch,lookback or forward starting options

We establish pathwise duality using simple predictable trading strategies for the robust hedging problem associated with a barrier option whose payoff depends on the terminal level and the infimum of a càdlàg strictly positive stock price process, given tradeable European options at all strikes at a single maturity. The result allows for a significant dimension reduction in the computation of the superhedging cost, via an alternate lower-dimensional formulation of the primal problem as a convex optimization problem, which is qualitatively similar to the duality which was formally sketched using linear programming arguments in Duembgen and Rogers [10] for the case where we only consider continuous sample paths. The proof exploits a simplification of a classical result by Rogers (1993) which characterizes the attainable joint laws for the supremum and the drawdown of a uniformly integrable martingale (not necessarily continuous), combined with classical convex duality results from Rockefellar (1974) using paired spaces with compatible locally convex topologies and the Hahn–Banach theorem. We later adapt this result to include additional tradeable One-Touch options using the Kertz and Rösler (1990) condition. We also compute the superhedging cost when in the more realistic situation where there is only finite tradeable European options; for this case we obtain the full duality in the sense of quantile hedging as in Soner (2015), where the superhedge works with probability $1?\epsilon$ where $\epsilon$ can be arbitrarily small), and we obtain an upper bound for the true pathwise superhedging cost. In Section 5, we extend our analysis to include time-dependent barrier options using martingale coupling arguments, where we now have tradeable European options at both maturities at all strikes and tradeable forward starting options at all strikes. This set up is designed to approximate the more realistic situation where we have a finite number of tradeable Europeans at both maturities plus a finite number of tradeable forward starting options.¹     

Exercise Boundary Near Maturity for an American Option on Several Assets

We consider an American put option on a linear function of d dividend-paying assets. The value function of this option is given as the solution of a free boundary problem. When d = 1, the behavior of the free boundary near the maturity of the option is well known. In this article, we extend to the case d > 1 the study of the free boundary near maturity. A parameterization of the stopping region at time t is given. That enables us to define and give a convergence rate for this region when t goes to the maturity.     

Optimal makespan schedule for three jobs on two machines

This paper deals with the problem of scheduling three jobs on two machines in order to minimize the makespan, when operation preemptions are forbidden and routes are fixed and may vary per job. It is shown that this problem can be solved by anO(r ⁴) algorithm, wherer is the maximal number of operations per job. Supported by Belarussian Fundamental Research Found, Project Φ60–242, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Project ScheMA     

Front-fixing FEMs for the pricing of American options based on a PML technique

In this paper, efficient numerical methods are developed for the pricing of American options governed by the Black–Scholes equation. The front-fixing technique is first employed to transform the free boundary of optimal exercise prices to some a priori known temporal line for a one-dimensional parabolic problem via the change of variables. The perfectly matched layer (PML) technique is then applied to the pricing problem for the effective truncation of the semi-infinite domain. Finite element methods using the respective continuous and discontinuous Galerkin discretization are proposed for the resulting truncated PML problems related to the options and Greeks. The free boundary is determined by Newton’s method coupled with the discrete truncated PML problem. Stability and nonnegativeness are established for the approximate solution to the truncated PML problem. Under some weak assumptions on the PML medium parameters, it is also proved that the solution of the truncated PML problem converges to that of the unbounded Black–Scholes equation in the computational domain and decays exponentially in the perfectly matched layer. Numerical experiments are conducted to test the performance of the proposed methods and to compare them with some existing methods.     

The logarithmic HLS inequality for systems on compact manifolds

We prove an optimal logarithmic Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality for systems on compact m-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, for any m?2. We show that a special case of the inequality, involving only two functions, implies the general case by using an argument from the theory of linear programing.     

基于CEV过程带交易费的脆弱期权定价的数值算法

主要研究基于CEV过程且支付交易费的脆弱期权定价的数值计算问题.首先通过构造无风险投资组合,导出了基于CEV过程且支付交易费用的脆弱期权定价的偏微分方程模型;其次应用有限差分方法将定价模型离散化,并设计数值算法;最后以看跌期权为例进行数值试验,分析各定价参数对看跌期权价值的影响.     

单机排序问题最优解的结构及其求法

本文研究了单机排序问题|r_i=0|∑|c_i-d_i|最优解的结构．提出了最优解的紧密规则，以及最优解的近似求法．     

Smarandache函数在两数列上的下界估计

设S(n)是Smarandache函数,其中n是一正整数.讨论Smarandache函数S(n)在数列F((2k),1)=F(n,1)=n2n+1(n=2k)与数列G(2n,1)=(2n)2n+1上的下界估计.基于初等方法证明了:当偶数n≥6时,有S(F((2k),1))=S(F(n,1))≥6×2n+1;当n≥4时,有S(G(2n,1))≥6×2n+1.     

线性流形上两类矩阵反问题的最小二乘解

给定广义自反矩阵R,S,即R=R=R-1,S=S=S-1,若复矩阵X满足条件RXS=X（或RXS=X）,则称其为（R,S）-对称矩阵（或（R,S）-斜对称矩阵）.分别讨论了线性流形上（R,S）-对称矩阵和（R,S）-斜对称矩阵约束下矩阵方程MZN=E的最小二乘问题,得到了通解表达式.     

The generalized Cauchy problem with data on two surfaces for a quasilinear analytic system

We consider the generalized Cauchy problem with data on two surfaces for a second-order quasilinear analytic system. The distinction of the generalized Cauchy problem from the traditional statement of the Cauchy problem is that the initial conditions for different unknown functions are given on different surfaces: for each unknown function we pose its own initial condition on its own coordinate axis. Earlier, the generalized Cauchy problem was considered in the works of C. Riquier, N. M. Gyunter, S. L. Sobolev, N. A. Lednev, V. M. Teshukov, and S. P. Bautin. In this article we construct a solution to the generalized Cauchy problem in the case when the system of partial differential equations additionally contains the values of the derivatives of the unknown functions (in particular outer derivatives) given on the coordinate axes. The last circumstance is a principal distinction of the problem in the present article from the generalized Cauchy problems studied earlier.     

Existence of a solution for two phase flow in porous media: The case that the porosity depends on the pressure

In this paper we prove the existence of a solution of a coupled system involving a two phase incompressible flow in the ground and the mechanical deformation of the porous medium where the porosity is a function of the global pressure. The model is strongly coupled and involves a nonlinear degenerate parabolic equation. In order to show the existence of a weak solution, we consider a sequence of related uniformly parabolic problems and apply the Schauder fixed point theorem to show that they possess a classical solution. We then prove the relative compactness of sequences of solutions by means of the Fréchet-Kolmogorov theorem; this yields the convergence of a subsequence to a weak solution of the parabolic system.