<p>Numerical methods such as Monte Carlo method (MCM), finite difference method (FDM) and finite element method (FEM) have been successfully implemented to solve financial partial differential equations (PDEs). Sophisticated computational algorithms are strongly desired to further improve accuracy and efficiency.</p><p>The relatively new spectral element method (SEM) combines the exponential convergence of spectral method and the geometric flexibility of FEM. This dissertation carefully investigates SEM on the pricing of European options and their Greeks (Delta, Gamma and Theta). The essential techniques, Gauss quadrature rules, are thoroughly discussed and developed. The spectral element method and its error analysis are briefly introduced first and expanded in details afterwards.</p><p>Multi-element spectral element method (ME-SEM) for the Black-Scholes PDE is derived on European put options with and without dividend and on a condor option with a more complicated payoff. Under the same Crank-Nicolson approach for the time integration, the SEM shows significant accuracy increase and time cost reduction over the FDM. A novel discontinuous payoff spectral element method (DP-SEM) is invented and numerically validated on a European binary put option. The SEM is also applied to the constant elasticity of variance (CEV) model and verified with the MCM and the valuation formula. The Stochastic Alpha Beta Rho (SABR) model is solved with multi-dimensional spectral element method (MD-SEM) on a European put option. Error convergence for option prices and Greeks with respect to the number of grid points and the time step is analyzed and illustrated.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (MComm (Statistics and Actuarial Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / The use of options on various stock markets over the world has introduced a unique opportunity for investors to hedge, speculate, create synthetic financial instruments and reduce funding and other costs in their trading strategies. The power of options lies in their versatility. They enable an investor to adapt or adjust her position according to any situation that arises. Another benefit of using options is that they provide leverage. Since options cost less than stock, they provide a high-leverage approach to trading that can significantly limit the overall risk of a trade, or provide additional income. This versatility and leverage, however, come at a price. Options are complex securities and can be extremely risky. In this document several aspects of trading and valuing some exotic options are investigated. The aim is to give insight into their uses and the risks involved in their trading. Two volatility-dependent derivatives, namely compound and chooser options; two path-dependent derivatives, namely barrier and Asian options; and lastly binary options, are discussed in detail. The purpose of this study is to provide a reference that contains both the mathematical derivations and detail in valuating these exotic options, as well as an overview of their applicability and use for students and other interested parties.

På finansmarknaden finns det flera olika typer finansiella instrument och utbudet ökar stadigt. Utvecklingen har lett till att det har blivit svårare för icke-professionella kunder att utvärdera riskerna med instrumenten. Vissa finansiella instrument som finns på marknaden är så kallade finansiella derivatinstrument, vars värde beror på en underliggande tillgångs värdeutveckling. En ny reglering om produktgodkännande av finansiella instrument introducerades genom Europaparlamentets och rådets direktiv 2014/65/EU. Processen för produktgodkännande är reglerad i 8 kap. 13 § lag (2007:528) om värdepappersmarknaden. Regleringen innebär att, värdepappersinstitut måste ha en välordnad process för godkännande av egenproducerade finansiella instrument innan marknadsföring eller distribution till kund får ske. I och med Europaparlamentets och rådets direktiv 2014/65/EU och Europaparlamentets och rådets förordning (EU) nr 600/2014, har nationella behöriga myndigheter och Esma erhållit befogenhet att utföra produktingripanden. Syftet med produktingripanden är att skydda ickeprofessionella kunder från produkter på finansmarknaden som är riskfyllda och har svårbedömda egenskaper. Esma har nyligen publicerat ett åtgärdsförslag avseende begränsningar av marknadsföring, distribution och försäljning av contracts for difference samt ett förbud av marknadsföring, distribution och försäljning av binära optioner till ickeprofessionella kunder. I uppsatsen visas att produktingripanden är ett verktyg som kan komma att gynna både nationella behöriga myndigheter och Esma i tillsynsarbetet, i syfte att stärka investerarskyddet för icke-professionella kunder. Samarbetet mellan Esma och nationella behöriga myndigheter bör även utvecklas för att genomdriva framtida åtgärdsförslag. Åtgärdsförslag bör främst vara antagna av Esma för att därefter antas av nationella behöriga myndigheter inom EU. Genom ett sådant tillvägagångssätt kan harmoniseringsarbetet, avseende regleringen av kapitalmarknaden i EU, fortsätta på ett ändamålsenligt sätt. I uppsatsen visas även att Esma:s nuvarande åtgärdsförslag, angående begränsningar och förbud av marknadsföring, distribution och försäljning av contracts for difference och binära optioner, är ett välgrundat förslag med beaktande av de risker som icke-professionella kunder utsätts för vid handel av dessa riskfyllda finansiella derivatinstrument.

Cette thèse est composée de quatre chapitres. Le premier chapitre traite de l'évaluation de produits financiers dans un modèle comportant un saut pour l'actif risque. Ce saut représente la faillite de l'entreprise correspondante. On étudie alors l'évaluation des prix d'options par indifférence d'utilité dans un cadre d'utilité exponentielle. Par des techniques de programmation dynamique on montre que le prix d'un Bond est solution d'une équation différentielle et le prix d'options dépendantes de l'actif est solution d'une équation aux dérives partielles d'Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman. Le saut dans la dynamique de l'actif risque induit des différences avec le modèle de Merton que nous tentons de quantifier. Le second chapitre traite d'un marché comportant des sauts : les paris sur le football. Nous rappelons les différentes familles de modèles pour un match de football et introduisons un modèle complet permettant d'évaluer les prix des différents produits apparus sur ce marché ces dix dernières années. La complexité de ce modèle nous amène à étudier un modèle simplifié dont nous étudions les implications et calculons les prix obtenus que l'on compare à la réalité. On remarque que la calibration implicite obtenue génère de très bons résultats en produisant des prix très proches de la réalité. Le troisième chapitre développe le problème de fixation des prix par un teneur de marche monopolistique dans le marché des paris binaires. Ce travail est un prolongement direct au problème introduit par Levitt [Lev04]. Nous généralisons en effet son travail aux cas des paris européens et proposons une méthode pour estimer la méthode de cotation utilisée par le book-maker. Nous montrons que deux hypothèses inextricables peuvent expliquer cette fixation des prix. D'une part, l'incertitude du public sur la vraie valeur ainsi que le caractère extrêmement risque-averse du bookmaker. Le quatrième chapitre prolonge quant à lui cette approche au cas de produits financiers non binaires. Nous examinons différents modèles d'offre et de demande et en déduisons, par des techniques de programmation dynamique, des équations aux dérivées partielles dictant la formation des prix d'achat et de vente. Nous montrons finalement que l'écart entre prix d'achat et prix de vente ne dépend pas de la position du teneur de marche dans l'actif considère. Cependant le prix moyen dépend lui fortement de la quantité détenue par le teneur de marche. Une approche simplifiée est finalement proposée dans le cas multidimensionnel / This thesis is composed of four chapters. The first one deals with the pricing of financial products in a single jump model for the risky asset. This jump represents the bankrupcy of the quoted firm. We study the pricing of derivatives in the context of indifference of utility with an exponential utility. By means of dynamic programming we show that the bond price is solution of an ordinary differential equation and that stock price dependent options are solutions of an equation with partial derivatives of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman type generalizing the Black-Scholes one. We then try to quantify differences in the price obtained here and the one from Merton model without jump. The second chapter deals with a specific jump market : the soccer betting market. We recall the different model families for a soccer match and introduce some full model which allows to price the products recently born in this market in last ten years. Nevertheless the model complexity leads us to study a simplified model introduced by Dixon and Robinson from which we are able to derive closed formulas and simulate prices that we compare to market prices. We remark that implicit calibration gives pretty goof fit of market data. Third chapter developps the approach of Levitt [Lev04] on price formation in binary betting market held by a monopolistic market-maker operating in a one time step trading. We generalize Levitt results with european format of betting. We show that prices are distorded on the pressure of demand and offer, that phenomena introducing a market probability that allows to price products under this new measure. We identify some best model for demand and offer and market maker strategy and show that probability change is obvious in case of imperfect information about the value of the product. Fourth chapter generalizes this approach to the case of general payoffs and continuous time. The task is more complex and we just derive partial derivative equations from dynamic programming that enable us to give the bid-ask prices of the product traded by the market-maker. One result is that, in most models, bid-ask spread does not depend on the inventory held by the dealer whereas mid-quote price strongly reflects the unbalance of the dealer

Diplomová práce primárně řeší zda jsou exotické opce vhodné pro zajištění kurzových rizik a přináší návrh vhodné aplikace exotických opcí. Práce je zaměřena na úzkou skupinu exotických opcí, tzv. Path-Dependent opce. Tři často používané typy těchto opcí jsou analyzovány a testovány jak mezi sebou tak pro lepší porovnání i s klasickou vanilla opcí. Hlavním výstupem diplomové práce je návrh vhodného využití testovaných exotických opcí.

In mathematical finance, the sensitivities of option prices to various market parameters, also known as the “Greeks”, reflect the exposure to different sources of risk. Computing these is essential to predict the impact of market moves on portfolios and to hedge them adequately. This is commonly done using Monte Carlo simulations. However, obtaining accurate estimates of the Greeks can be computationally costly. Multilevel Monte Carlo offers complexity improvements over standard Monte Carlo techniques. However the idea has never been used for the computation of Greeks. In this work we answer the following questions: can multilevel Monte Carlo be useful in this setting? If so, how can we construct efficient estimators? Finally, what computational savings can we expect from these new estimators? We develop multilevel Monte Carlo estimators for the Greeks of a range of options: European options with Lipschitz payoffs (e.g. call options), European options with discontinuous payoffs (e.g. digital options), Asian options, barrier options and lookback options. Special care is taken to construct efficient estimators for non-smooth and exotic payoffs. We obtain numerical results that demonstrate the computational benefits of our algorithms. We discuss the issues of convergence of pathwise sensitivities estimators. We show rigorously that the differentiation of common discretisation schemes for Ito processes does result in satisfactory estimators of the the exact solutions’ sensitivities. We also prove that pathwise sensitivities estimators can be used under some regularity conditions to compute the Greeks of options whose underlying asset’s price is modelled as an Ito process. We present several important results on the moments of the solutions of stochastic differential equations and their discretisations as well as the principles of the so-called “extreme path analysis”. We use these to develop a rigorous analysis of the complexity of the multilevel Monte Carlo Greeks estimators constructed earlier. The resulting complexity bounds appear to be sharp and prove that our multilevel algorithms are more efficient than those derived from standard Monte Carlo.