Many phenomena in our world can be described as differential equations in high dimensions. However, they are notoriously challenging to solve numerically due to the exponential growth in computational cost with increasing dimensions. This thesis explores an algorithm, known as deep BSDE, for solving high-dimensional partial differential equations and applies it to finance, namely European option pricing. In addition, an implementation of the method is provided that seemingly shortens the runtime by a factor of two, compared with the results in previous studies. From the results, we can conclude that the deep BSDE method does handle high-dimensional problems well. Lastly, the thesis gives the relevant prerequisites required to be able to digest the theory from an undergraduate level.

In this project, we are aiming to solve option pricing and hedging problems numerically via Backward Stochastic Differential Equations (BSDEs). We use Markovian BSDEs to formulate nonlinear pricing and hedging problems of both European and American option types. This method of formulation is crucial for pricing financial instruments since it enables consideration of market imperfections and computations in high dimensions. We conduct numerical experiments of the pricing and hedging problems, where there is a higher interest rate for borrowing than lending, using the least squares Monte Carlo and deep neural network methods. Moreover, based on the experiment results, we point out which method to chooseover the other depending on the the problem at hand.