We develop a new Monte Carlo variance reduction method to estimate the expectation of two commonly encountered path-dependent functionals: first-passage times and occupation times of sets. The method is based on a recursive approximation of the first
-passage time probability and expected occupation time of sets of a Levy bridge process that relies in part on a randomisation of the time parameter. We establish this recursion for general Levy processes and derive its explicit form for mixed-exponential jump-diffusions, a dense subclass (in the sense of weak approximation) of Levy processes, which includes Brownian motion with drift, Kous double-exponential model and hyper-exponential jump-diffusion models. We present a highly accurate numerical realisation and derive error estimates. By way of illustration the method is applied to the valuation of range accruals and barrier options under exponential Levy models and Bates-type stochastic volatility models with exponential jumps. Compared with standard Monte Carlo methods, we find that the method is significantly more efficient.
In this paper we present a weak approximation scheme for BSDEs driven by a Wiener process and an (in)finite activity Poisson random measure with drivers that are general Lipschitz functionals of the solution of the BSDE. The approximating backward st
ochastic difference equations (BSDelta Es) are driven by random walks that weakly approximate the given Wiener process and Poisson random measure. We establish the weak convergence to the solution of the BSDE and the numerical stability of the sequence of solutions of the BSDelta Es. By way of illustration we analyse explicitly a scheme with discrete step-size distributions.
In this paper we propose the notion of continuous-time dynamic spectral risk-measure (DSR). Adopting a Poisson random measure setting, we define this class of dynamic coherent risk-measures in terms of certain backward stochastic differential equatio
ns. By establishing a functional limit theorem, we show that DSRs may be considered to be (strongly) time-consistent continuous-time extensions of iterated spectral risk-measures, which are obtained by iterating a given spectral risk-measure (such as Expected Shortfall) along a given time-grid. Specifically, we demonstrate that any DSR arises in the limit of a sequence of such iterated spectral risk-measures driven by lattice-random walks, under suitable scaling and vanishing time- and spatial-mesh sizes. To illustrate its use in financial optimisation problems, we analyse a dynamic portfolio optimisation problem under a DSR.
In this paper we develop an algorithm to calculate the prices and Greeks of barrier options in a hyper-exponential additive model with piecewise constant parameters. We obtain an explicit semi-analytical expression for the first-passage probability.
The solution rests on a randomization and an explicit matrix Wiener-Hopf factorization. Employing this result we derive explicit expressions for the Laplace-Fourier transforms of the prices and Greeks of barrier options. As a numerical illustration, the prices and Greeks of down-and-in digital and down-and-in call options are calculated for a set of parameters obtained by a simultaneous calibration to Stoxx50E call options across strikes and four different maturities. By comparing the results with Monte-Carlo simulations, we show that the method is fast, accurate, and stable.
The Wiener-Hopf factorization is obtained in closed form for a phase type approximation to the CGMY L{e}vy process. This allows, for the approximation, exact computation of first passage times to barrier levels via Laplace transform inversion. Calibr
ation of the CGMY model to market option prices defines the risk neutral process for which we infer the first passage times of stock prices to 30% of the price level at contract initiation. These distributions are then used in pricing 50% recovery rate equity default swap (EDS) contracts and the resulting prices are compared with the prices of credit default swaps (CDS). An illustrative analysis is presented for these contracts on Ford and GM.
