We analyze the Merton portfolio optimization problem when the growth rate is an unobserved Gaussian process whose level is estimated by filtering from observations of the stock price. We use the Kalman filter to track the hidden state(s) of expected returns given the history of asset prices, and...

We consider the problem of filtering and control in the setting of portfolio optimization in financial markets with random factors that are not directly observable. The example that we present is a commodities portfolio where yields on futures contracts are observed with some noise. Through the...

This paper considers the problem of portfolio optimization in a market with partial information and discretely observed price processes. Partial information refers to the setting where assets have unobserved factors in the rate of return and the level of volatility. Standard filtering techniques...

We study the dynamics of VIX futures and ETNs/ETFs. We find that contrary to classical commodities, VIX and VIX futures exhibit large volatility and skewness, consistent with the absence of cash-and-carry arbitrage. The constant-maturity futures (CMF) term-structure can be modeled as a...

The replication of any European contingent claim by a static portfolio of calls and puts with strikes forming a continuum, formally proven by Carr and Madan (1998), extends to "standard dispersion" options written on the Euclidean norm of a vector of n asset performances. With the help of...

Volatility products have become popular in the past 15 years as a hedge against market uncertainty. In particular, there is growing interest in options on the VIX volatility index. A number of recent empirical studies have examine whether there is significantly greater risk premium in VIX...

We formulate and analyse an inverse problem using derivative prices to obtain an implied filtering density on volatility's hidden state. Stochastic volatility is the unobserved state in a hidden Markov model (HMM) and can be tracked using Bayesian filtering. However, derivative data can be...

This paper shows how to recover stochastic volatility models (SVMs) from market models for the VIX futures term structure. Market models have more flexibility for fitting of curves than do SVMs, and therefore they are better-suited for pricing VIX futures and derivatives. But the VIX itself is a...