A local volatility model is enhanced by the possibility of a single jump to default. The jump has a hazard rate that is the product of the stock price raised to a prespecified negative power and a deterministic function of time. The empirical work uses a power of -1.5. It is shown how one may...

Prudent upper and lower valuations from the literature on arbitrage free two price economies provide risk characteristics driving required returns. The risk characteristics assess the risk of price fluctuations. The difference between the upper and lower prudent valuations can be viewed as a...

The logarithm of SPX is modeled as a Sato process running at a speed proportional to the current level of the VIX. When the logarithm of the VIX is an exponential compound Poisson process with drift one may obtain exact expressions for the prices of equity options taken at an independent...