We study a series of static and dynamic portfolios of VIX futures and their effectiveness to track the VIX index. We derive each portfolio using optimization methods, and evaluate its tracking performance from both empirical and theoretical perspectives. Among our results, we show that static...

This paper analyzes the timing options embedded in a startup firm, and the associated market entry and exit timing decisions under the exogenous risks of early termination and competitor's entry. Our valuation approach leads to the analytical study of a non-standard perpetual American...

This paper analyzes the problem of starting and stopping a Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) process with fixed costs. In addition, we also study a related optimal switching problem that involves an infinite sequence of starts and stops. We establish the conditions under which the starting-stopping and...

This paper studies the timing of trades under mean-reverting price dynamics subject to fixed transaction costs. We solve an optimal double stopping problem to determine the optimal times to enter and subsequently exit the market, when prices are driven by an exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck...

This paper studies the problem of trading futures with transaction costs when the underlying spot price is mean-reverting. Specifically, we model the spot dynamics by the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU), Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR), or exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (XOU) model. The futures term structure...

We study the problem of dynamically trading multiple futures contracts with different underlying assets. To capture the joint dynamics of stochastic bases for all traded futures, we propose a new model involving a multi-dimensional scaled Brownian bridge that is stopped before price convergence....

Employee stock options (ESOs) have become an integral component of compensation in the U.S. In view of their significant cost to firms, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has mandated expensing ESOs since 2004. The main difficulty of ESO valuation lies in the uncertain timing of...

We study the problem of dynamically trading futures in continuous time under a multifactor Gaussian framework. We present a utility maximization approach to determine the optimal futures trading strategy. This leads to the explicit solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations. We...

We present the method of complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition (CEEMD) and Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) for analyzing nonstationary financial time series. This noise-assisted approach decomposes any time series into a number of intrinsic mode functions, along with the...

This paper studies the empirical tracking performance of leveraged ETFs on gold, and their price relationships with gold spot and futures. For tracking the gold spot, we find that our optimized portfolios with short-term gold futures are highly effective in replicating prices. The market-traded...