Certain exotic options cannot be valued using closed-form solutions or even by numerical methods assuming constant volatility. Many exotics are priced in a local volatility framework. Pricing under local volatility has become a field of extensive research in finance, and various models are...

Since their introduction, quanto options have steadily gained popularity. Matching Black-Scholes-type pricing models and, more recently, a fat-tailed, normal tempered stable variant have been established. The objective here is to empirically assess the adequacy of quanto-option pricing models....

Hedging down-and-out puts (and up-and-out calls), where the maximum payoff is reached just before a barrier is hit that would render the claim worthless afterwards, is challenging. All hedging methods potentially lead to large errors when the underlying is already close to the barrier and the...

We address a number of technical problems with the popular Practitioner Black-Scholes (PBS) method for valuing options. The method amounts to a two-stage procedure in which fitted values of implied volatilities (IV) from a linear regression are plugged into the Black-Scholes formula to obtain...

We are concerned with the valuation of European options in Heston's stochastic volatility model with correlation. Based on Mellin transforms we present new closed-form solutions for the price of European options and hedging parameters. In contrast to Fourier-based approaches where the...

This paper examines a simple basis risk model based on correlated geometric Brownian motions. We apply quadratic criteria to minimize basis risk and hedge in an optimal manner. Initially, we derive the Föllmer–Schweizer decomposition for a European claim. This allows pricing and hedging under...

In this paper we formulate the Risk Management Control problem in the interest rate area as a constrained stochastic portfolio optimization problem. The utility that we use can be any continuous function and based on the viscosity theory, the unique solution of the problem is guaranteed. The...

In this paper, we reexamine and extend the stochastic volatility model of Stein and Stein (1991) where volatility follows a mean-reversion Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Using Fourier inversion techniques we are able to allow for correlation between instan-taneous volatilities and the underlying...

In this paper we follow a different approach by taking a first step towards an option valuation model which does not explicitly make use of unobservable State variables. Instead of using a stochastic variance variable directly, we assume that the variance of stock returns is determined by the...

In this paper, we present a stochastic optimal control model to optimize an insurance firm problem in the case where its cash-balance process is assumed to be described by a stochastic differential equation driven by Teugels martingales. Noticing that the insurance firm is able to control its...