Quantitative Finance

Pesenti, Silvana;Jaimungal, Sebastian

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Abstract: We study the problem of active portfolio management where an investor aims to outperform a benchmark strategy's risk profile while not deviating too far from it. Specifically, an investor considers alternative strategies whose terminal wealth lie within a Wasserstein ball surrounding a benchmark's -- being distributionally close -- and that have a specified dependence/copula -- tying state-by-state outcomes -- to it. The investor then chooses the alternative strategy that minimises a distortion risk measure of terminal wealth. In a general (complete) market model, we prove that an optimal dynamic strategy exists and provide its characterisation through the notion of isotonic projections. We further propose a simulation approach to calculate the optimal strategy's terminal wealth, making our approach applicable to a wide range of market models. Finally, we illustrate how investors with different copula and risk preferences invest and improve upon the benchmark using the Tail Value-at-Risk, inverse S-shaped, and lower- and upper-tail distortion risk measures as examples. We find that investors' optimal terminal wealth distribution has larger probability masses in regions that reduce their risk measure relative to the benchmark while preserving the benchmark's structure.

Arduca, Maria;Munari, Cosimo

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Abstract: We study the range of prices at which a rational agent should contemplate transacting a financial contract outside a given securities market. Trading is subject to nonproportional transaction costs and portfolio constraints and full replication by way of market instruments is not always possible. Rationality is defined in terms of consistency with market prices and acceptable risk thresholds. We obtain a direct and a dual description of market-consistent prices with acceptable risk. The dual characterization requires an appropriate extension of the classical Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing where the role of arbitrage opportunities is played by acceptable deals, i.e., costless investment opportunities with acceptable risk-reward tradeoff. In particular, we highlight the importance of scalable acceptable deals, i.e., investment opportunities that are acceptable deals regardless of their volume.

Rai, Anish;Mahata, Ajit;Nurujjaman, Md;Prakash, Om

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Abstract: During any unique crisis, panic sell-off leads to a massive stock market crash that may continue for more than a day, termed as mainshock. The effect of a mainshock in the form of aftershocks can be felt throughout the recovery phase of stock price. As the market remains in stress during recovery, any small perturbation leads to a relatively smaller aftershock. The duration of the recovery phase has been estimated using structural break analysis. We have carried out statistical analyses of the 1987 stock market crash, 2008 financial crisis and 2020 COVID-19 pandemic considering the actual crash-times of the mainshock and aftershocks. Earlier, such analyses were done considering an absolute one-day return, which cannot capture a crash properly. The results show that the mainshock and aftershock in the stock market follow the Gutenberg-Richter (GR) power law. Further, we obtained a higher $\beta$ value for the COVID-19 crash compared to the financial-crisis-2008 from the GR law. This implies that the recovery of stock price during COVID-19 may be faster than the financial-crisis-2008. The result is consistent with the present recovery of the market from the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis shows that the high magnitude aftershocks are rare, and low magnitude aftershocks are frequent during the recovery phase. The analysis also shows that the distribution $P(\tau_i)$ follows the generalized Pareto distribution, i.e., $\displaystyle~P(\tau_i)\propto\frac{1}{\{1+\lambda(q-1)\tau_i\}^{\frac{1}{(q-1)}}}$, where $\lambda$ and $q$ are constants and $\tau_i$ is the inter-occurrence time. This analysis may help investors to restructure their portfolios during a market crash.

Jin, Zhuo;Xu, Zuo Quan;Zou, Bin

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Abstract: We study an optimal dividend problem for an insurer who simultaneously controls investment weights in a financial market, liability ratio in the insurance business, and dividend payout rate. The insurer seeks an optimal strategy to maximize her expected utility of dividend payments over an infinite horizon. By applying a perturbation approach, we obtain the optimal strategy and the value function in closed form for log and power utility. We conduct an economic analysis to investigate the impact of various model parameters and risk aversion on the insurer's optimal strategy.

Lee, Seunghyun;Park, Hyungbin

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Abstract: This paper studies the equilibrium price of a continuous time asset traded in a market with heterogeneous investors. We consider a positive mean reverting asset and two groups of investors who have different beliefs on the speed of mean reversion and the mean level. We provide an equivalent condition for bubbles to exist and show that price bubbles may not form even though there are heterogeneous beliefs. This condition is directly related to the drift term of the asset. In addition, we characterize the minimal equilibrium price as a unique $C^2$ solution of a differential equation and express it using confluent hypergeometric functions.

Antoniades, Ioannis P.;Karakatsanis, Leonidas P.;Pavlos, Evgenios G.

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Abstract: We perform non-linear analysis on stock market indices using time-dependent extended Tsallis statistics. Specifically, we evaluate the q-triplet for particular time periods with the purpose of demonstrating the temporal dependence of the extended characteristics of the underlying market dynamics. We apply the analysis on daily close price timeseries of four major global markets (S&P 500, Tokyo-NIKKEI, Frankfurt-DAX, London-LSE). For comparison, we also compute time-dependent Generalized Hurst Exponents (GHE) Hq using the GHE method, thus estimating the temporal evolution of the multiscaling characteristics of the index dynamics. We focus on periods before and after critical market events such as stock market bubbles (2000 this http URL bubble, Japanese 1990 bubble, 2008 US real estate crisis) and find that the temporal trends of q-triplet values significantly differ among these periods indicating that in the rising period before a bubble break, the underlying extended statistics of the market dynamics strongly deviates from purely stochastic behavior, whereas, after the breakdown, it gradually converges to the Gaussian-like behavior which is a characteristic of an efficient market. We also conclude that relative temporal variation patterns of the Tsallis q-triplet can be connected to different aspects of market dynamics and reveals useful information about market conditions especially those underlying the development of a stock market bubble. We found specific temporal patterns and trends in the relative variation of the indices in the q-triplet that distinguish periods just before and just after a stock-market bubble break. Differences between endogenous and exogenous stock market crises are also captured by the temporal changes in the Tsallis q-triplet. Finally, we introduce two new time-dependent empirical metrics (Q-metrics) that are functions of the Tsallis q-triplet.

An, Dong;Linden, Noah;Liu, Jin-Peng;Montanaro, Ashley;Shao, Changpeng;Wang, Jiasu

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Abstract: Inspired by recent progress in quantum algorithms for ordinary and partial differential equations, we study quantum algorithms for stochastic differential equations (SDEs). Firstly we provide a quantum algorithm that gives a quadratic speed-up for multilevel Monte Carlo methods in a general setting. As applications, we apply it to compute expectation values determined by classical solutions of SDEs, with improved dependence on precision. We demonstrate the use of this algorithm in a variety of applications arising in mathematical finance, such as the Black-Scholes and Local Volatility models, and Greeks. We also provide a quantum algorithm based on sublinear binomial sampling for the binomial option pricing model with the same improvement.

de Feo, Filippo

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Abstract: In this work we study the averaging principle for non-autonomous slow-fast systems of stochastic differential equations. In particular in the first part we prove the averaging principle assuming the sublinearity, the Lipschitzianity and the Holder's continuity in time of the coefficients, an ergodic hypothesis and an $\mathcal{L}^2$-bound of the fast component. In this setting we prove the weak convergence of the slow component to the solution of the averaged equation. Moreover we provide a suitable dissipativity condition under which the ergodic hypothesis and the $\mathcal{L}^2$-bound of the fast component, which are implicit conditions, are satisfied. In the second part we propose a financial application of this result: we apply the theory developed to a slow-fast local stochastic volatility model. First we prove the weak convergence of the model to a local volatility one. Then under a risk neutral measure we show that the prices of the derivatives, possibly path-dependent, converge to the ones calculated using the limit model.

Grasselli, Martino;Mazzoran, Andrea;Pallavicini, Andrea

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Abstract: We analyze the VIX futures market with a focus on the exchange-traded notes written on such contracts, in particular we investigate the VXX notes tracking the short-end part of the futures term structure. Inspired by recent developments in commodity smile modelling, we present a multi-factor stochastic-local volatility model that is able to jointly calibrate plain vanilla options both on VIX futures and VXX notes, thus going beyond the failure of purely stochastic or simply local volatility models. We discuss numerical results on real market data by highlighting the impact of model parameters on implied volatilities.

Barigou, Karim;Bignozzi, Valeria;Tsanakas, Andreas

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Abstract: Current approaches to fair valuation in insurance often follow a two-step approach, combining quadratic hedging with application of a risk measure on the residual liability, to obtain a cost-of-capital margin. In such approaches, the preferences represented by the regulatory risk measure are not reflected in the hedging process. We address this issue by an alternative two-step hedging procedure, based on generalised regression arguments, which leads to portfolios that are neutral with respect to a risk measure, such as Value-at-Risk or the expectile. First, a portfolio of traded assets aimed at replicating the liability is determined by local quadratic hedging. Second, the residual liability is hedged using an alternative objective function. The risk margin is then defined as the cost of the capital required to hedge the residual liability. In the case quantile regression is used in the second step, yearly solvency constraints are naturally satisfied; furthermore, the portfolio is a risk minimiser among all hedging portfolios that satisfy such constraints. We present a neural network algorithm for the valuation and hedging of insurance liabilities based on a backward iterations scheme. The algorithm is fairly general and easily applicable, as it only requires simulated paths of risk drivers.