Option pricing in incomplete markets

Expected utility maximization is a very useful approach for pricing options in an incomplete market. The results from this approach contain many important features observed by practitioners. However, under this approach, the option prices are determined by a set of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations in high dimensions. Thus, it represents numerous significant difficulties in both theoretical analysis and numerical computations. In this paper, we present accurate approximate solutions for this set of equations.     

Continuous local martingales and stochastic integration in UMD Banach spaces

Recently, van Neerven, Weis and the author, constructed a theory for stochastic integration of UMD Banach space valued processes. Here the authors use a (cylindrical) Brownian motion as an integrator. In this note we show how one can extend these results to the case where the integrator is an arbitrary real-valued continuous local martingale. We give several characterizations of integrability and prove a version of the Itô isometry, the Burkholder–Davis–Gundy inequality, the Itô formula and the martingale representation theorem.     

Markov processes generated by linear stochastic evolution equations †

A class of Hilbert space-valued Markov processes which can be expressed as the mild solution of a linear abstract evolution equation is studied. Sufficient conditions for the generator of the Markov process to be well-defined are given and Kolmogorov's equation and an equation for the characteristic function of the process are derived. The theory is illustrated by examples of parabolic, hyperbolic and delay stochastic differential equations.     

A trotter product formula for random matrices

This note contains a generalization of the Trotter product formula to the setting of multiple linear systems of stochastic differential equations. From the result it follows that the solution of a system in Stratonovich form in a Lie algebra lies in the corresponding Lie group     

Fundamental solutions of stochastic differential equations with drift

The paper deals with the pathwise uniqueness of solutions to one-dimensional time homogeneous stochastic differential equations with a diffusion coefficient σ satisfying the local time condition and measurable drift term b. We show that if the functions σ and b satisfy a non-degeneracy condition and fundamental solution to considered equation is unique in law, then pathwise uniqueness of solutions holds. Our result is in some sense negative, more precisely we give an example of an equation with Holder continuous diffusion coefficient and nondegenerate drift for which a fundamental solution is not unique in law and pathwise uniqueness of solutions does not hold.     

Using Random Quasi-Monte-Carlo Within Particle Filters,With Application to Financial Time Series

This article presents a new particle filter algorithm which uses random quasi-Monte-Carlo to propagate particles. The filter can be used generally, but here it is shown that for one-dimensional state-space models, if the number of particles is N, then the rate of convergence of this algorithm is N^?1. This compares favorably with the N^?1/2 convergence rate of standard particle filters. The computational complexity of the new filter is quadratic in the number of particles, as opposed to the linear computational complexity of standard methods. I demonstrate the new filter on two important financial time series models, an ARCH model and a stochastic volatility model. Simulation studies show that for fixed CPU time, the new filter can be orders of magnitude more accurate than existing particle filters. The new filter is particularly efficient at estimating smooth functions of the states, where empirical rates of convergence are N^?3/2; and for performing smoothing, where both the new and existing filters have the same computational complexity.     

Spatial and Spatiotemporal Karhunen-Loève-Type Representations on Fractal Domains

Abstract

We study the spectral properties of spatial and spatiotemporal Gaussian random fields defined as the solutions to stochastic elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic fractional pseudodifferential equations on compact fractal domains. The fractal dimension of the domain modifies the asymptotic properties of the eigenvalues that define the pure point spectra of the covariance functions of the solutions and their Karhunen-Loève-type expansions. The eigenfunction systems involved constitute orthogonal bases of the corresponding trace spaces on fractal sets. The Hölder exponent of the sample paths of the random fields is computed in terms of the fractional order of mean-quadratic variation on their increments. Such an exponent also depends on the Hausdorff dimension of the domain.