A time homogeneous, purely discontinuous, parsimonous Markov martingale model is proposed for the risk neutral dynamics of equity forward prices. Transition probabilities are in the variance gamma class with spot dependent parameters. Markov chain approximations give access to option prices. The...

When the pricing kernel is U-shaped, then expected returns of claims with payout on the upside are negative for strikes beyond a threshold, determined by the slope of the U-shaped kernel in its increasing region, and have negative partial derivative with respect to strike in the increasing...

When the pricing kernel is U-shaped, then expected returns of claims with payout on the upside are negative for strikes beyond a threshold, determined by the slope of the U-shaped kernel in its increasing region, and have negative partial derivative with respect to strike in the increasing...

Allowing for correlated squared returns across two consecutive periods, portfolio theory for two periods is developed. This correlation makes it necessary to work with non-Gaussian models. The two period conic portfolio problem is formulated and implemented. This development leads to a mean ask...

We contrast two different asset pricing models, where the pricing kernel either (i) increases in the volatility dimension, reflecting investors' aversion to volatility, or (ii) could be non-monotonic in volatility, reflecting heterogeneity in investors' beliefs. The two models yield opposite...

We propose a model of volatility tail behavior, in which the pricing measure dominates the physical measure in both tails of the volatility distribution and, hence, the derived pricing kernel exhibits an increasing and decreasing region in the volatility dimension. The model features investors...

Return distributions in the class of pure jump limit laws are observed to reflect numerous asymmetries between the upward and downward motions of asset prices. The return distributions are modeled by self decomposable parametric laws with all parameters continuously responding to each other....

Daily asset returns are modeled using self decomposable limit laws and the structure is used to estimate the density of the uncentered data. Estimates of mean returns are a byproduct of the density estimate. Estimates of mean returns via density estimation have significantly lower standard...

Daily return distributions are modeled by pure jump limit laws that are selfdecomposable laws. The returns may be seen as composed of a sum of independent and identically distributed increments or as a selfsimilar law scaling the sum of exponentially weighted past shocks or a combination...

For underlying asset motions calibrating skewness and kurtosis beyond the volatility it becomes possible to consider these entities as responding to their observations in past data. Models with stochastic skewness and kurtosis are constructed by allowing the second, third and fourth power...