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...

The valuation of options and many other derivative instruments requires an estimation of exante or forward looking volatility. This paper adopts a Bayesian approach to estimate stock price volatility. We find evidence that overall Bayesian volatility estimates more closely approximate the...

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...

As the American early exercise results in a free boundary problem, in this article we add a penalty term to obtain a partial differential equation, and we also focus on an improved definition of the penalty term for American options. We replace the constant penalty parameter with a...

This paper investigates the American option price in a two-state regime-switching model. The dynamics of underlying are driven by a Markov-modulated Geometric Wiener process. That means the interest rate, the appreciation rate, and the volatility of underlying rely on hidden states of 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 consider a system where the asset values of firms are correlated with the default thresholds. We first evaluate the probability of default of a single firm under the correlated assets assumptions. This extends Merton’s probability of default of a single firm under the independent asset...

VaR (Value at Risk) and CVaR (Conditional Value at Risk) are implied by option prices. Their relationships to option prices are derived initially under the pricing measure. It does not require assumptions about the distribution of portfolio returns. The effects of changes of measure are modest...

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...