# Tag Info

17

This is an interesting and not so easy question. Here's my 2 cents: First, you should distinguish between mathematical models for the dynamics of an underlying asset (Black-Scholes, Merton, Heston etc.) and numerical methods designed to calculate financial instruments' prices under given modelling assumptions (lattices, Fourier inversion techniques etc.). ...

16

Along with Gatheral's book, I'd recommend reading Lorenzo Bergomi's "Stochastic Volatility Modelling". The first 2 chapters are available for download on his website. That being said, let me try to give you the basic picture. Below we assume that the equity forward curve $F(0,t)=\Bbb{E}_0^\Bbb{Q}[S_t]$ is given for all $t$ smaller than some relevant ...

15

1. What does it mean by the vol surface is the current view of vol? The local volatility model is calibrated to vanillas prices (and equivalently their implied volatilities), which reflect the market's view of the volatility, in order to use it to use it to price other options that one will hedge with the vanillas. Where a Black-Scholes model (no smile) ...

13

Let \begin{align*} Y_t = e^{(a+\frac{c^2}{2})t-cW_t}. \end{align*} Then \begin{align*} dY_t = Y_t\left[\big(a+c^2\big)dt -c dW_t \right]. \end{align*} Moreover, \begin{align*} d(X_tY_t) &= Y_t dX_t + X_t dY_t + d\langle X, Y\rangle_t\\ &=abY_tdt. \end{align*} That is, \begin{align*} X_t = Y_t^{-1}\left(X_0 + ab\int_0^t Y_sds\right). \end{align*}

11

To recover the Black-Scholes pricing equation, you should first express the standard normal cdf in terms of its characteristic function analogous to the Heston solution: $$N(x) = \frac{1}{2} - \frac{1}{\pi} \int_0^{\infty} Re [\frac{e^{-i\phi x} f(\phi)}{i\phi}] d\phi$$ where $f(\phi)$ is the characteristic function of the standard normal distribution: $$... 11 Some Notations It's easy to get lost so let's introduce some notations and let$$ \sigma : (t, S, K, \tau) \to \sigma(K,\tau; S, t) $$denote the implied volatility smile prevailing at time t when the spot price is S_t=S for an option with strike level K and time to expiry \tau=T-t. From here onward, we drop the t argument to keep notations ... 11 Great question. Let me try provide some insights and thoughts regarding your points and questions raised. It may not be a full answer but hopefully it helps to connect the contents in the paper/book with some trading intuition: From a theoretical perspective, I don't see any mistake in your thinking regarding skew decay but two questions arise on my end: ... 10 The way that I understand your question is that you are looking to fit the market prices of European plain vanilla options of a single maturity and then back out the corresponding implied probability density function. There are multiple ways that you could approach your problem. 1) Modelling the Market Prices The market prices of European plain vanilla ... 10 Itô's Lemma The standard version of Itô's Lemma applies to a single Itô process \text{d}X_t=\mu(t,X_t)\mathrm{d}t+\sigma(t,X_t)\mathrm dW_t. Then,$$\mathrm{d}f(t,X_t) = \left(f_t+\mu(t,X_t)f_x + \frac{1}{2}\sigma(t,X_t)^2f_{xx}\right)\mathrm{d}t+\sigma(t,X_t)f_x\mathrm dW_t.$$Let \text{d}Y_t=m(t,Y_t)\mathrm{d}t+s(t,Y_t)\mathrm dW_t^{(2)} be a second ... 9 Intuitively, in a (log)-space homogenous diffusion model$$ S_t \propto S_0, \forall t \geq 0 $$such that implied volatilities will only depend on the moneyness level and not on the absolute spot level, which is precisely the definition of sticky delta. Mathematically, consider a (log)-space homogeneous diffusion model (be it stochastic or not)$$ \frac{...

8

Whenever you use any model to price anything, all you need to do is make sure you model the underlying dynamics that the product you're pricing actually depends on. Any product will be dependent on numerous facets, to varying degrees - this is the same with modelling anything. The modelling that happens in pricing financial derivatives is an integration ...

8

$X_t$ being a stochastic process, one cannot use ordinary calculus to express the differential of a (sufficiently well-behaved) function $f$ of $t$ and $X_t$. Instead one should turn to Itô's lemma, one of the key results of stochastic calculus, which stipulates (assuming $X_t$ is here a continuous, square integrable stochastic process) $$df(t,X_t) = \frac{... 8 Stochastic-Local Vol (SLV) is an attempt to mix the strengths and weaknesses of both Stochastic Vol and Local Vol models. Below, I'll quickly summarise each model and their strengths and weaknesses, and then discuss how SLV tries to improve things. Although there are many stochastic vol models, I limit the discussion here to the Heston model to keep things ... 8 I'll answer both of your questions in one go: Your ideas are correct. If the Black-Scholes model was true, the implied volatility surface would be flat but it is not in real life. Thus, the geometric Brownian motion as stock price model is misspecified and we need more sophisticated models (sto vol, jumps etc), in particular if we want to price more ... 7 There are lots of papers online and here are a few I would suggest math.umn riskworx G. Dimitroff, J. de Kock Nowak, Sibetz I you have matlab there is an step step example to calibrate SABR model. Since it uses the financial toolbox of matlab for a few functions I dont think you can replicate it in any other language. There must be C++ code available ... 7 [Short answer] No closed-form formula in general. You need to resort to numerical methods. Monte Carlo is preferred by most practitioners but you could also use Finite Difference schemes (and sometimes even Fourier inversion techniques depending on the model used and the instruments to be priced). [Long answer] One usually distinguishes between 2 classes ... 7 In the context of option pricing, "implied volatility" always refers to the equivalent diffusion coefficient in the geometric Brownian motion (GBM) dynamics that is necessary to match an observed European plain vanilla price for a given strike and maturity. When talking about "model implied volatility smile", what is meant is that: You choose some pricing ... 7 The SABR process is a strict martingale for all values of beta < 1 (in particular, negative betas are fine). If beta = 1, the process is a strict martingale if and only if rho < 0. Under all other circumstances, i.e. beta > 1, or beta = 1 and rho >= 0, the SABR process is a local martingale but not a martingale (it may explode in finite time). 7 The following paper is helpful for understanding the point you raise: Hagan et al.: Managing Smile Risk, January 2002, Wilmott 1:84-108 The main point is given in the paper: [...] the dynamics of the market smile predicted by local vol models is opposite of observed market behavior: when the price of the underlying decreases, local vol models ... 7 Well, what you find is that the introduction of stochastic vol changes the delta of your options. So what does this mean? If the new delta reduces the variance of your hedged portfolio versus the pure local vol model , then it means that the introduction of stochastic vol has resulted in a better description of market dynamics versus the pure local vol ... 7 I have also currently started to learn about the subject. This is some of the material I have encountered: Many people recommend the book "The Volatility Surface: A Practitioner's Guide" by Jim Gatheral. It is a standard reference in the area (even though I personally found it a bit confusing and a bit unclear at some parts). The author also have ... 6 Let dS_t = \mu_tS_tdt + \sigma_tS_tdW_t be the underlying GBM (Geometric Brownian Motion)-like dynamics as in the question. Let B_t a Brownian motion such that d[B,W]_t = \rho dt, \rho\in[-1,1]. CIR (Cox-Ingersoll-Ross) for \sigma_t^2 (when combined with GBM-like underlying dynamics, it is the popular Heston SV model)$$d\sigma_t^2 = \kappa(\...

6

I am not sure if I understood your question correctly but I will try to answer it anyway. If you have a standard normal random vector $z \sim N(\mathbb{0},I_n)$ (where $z,0 \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times1}$ and $I_n \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ is the identity matrix) and you want to transform it into a multivariate normal $x \sim N(\mu,\Sigma)$ you do it the ...

6

The local vol model has exactly enough freedom to match the individual densities $X_t.$ There is no additional freedom in the local vol model to match even a joint density for a pair of times $(X_t,X_s).$ When you ask about the joint density across the continuum of times $t \in [0,T]$ it is pretty easy to show that any local vol model differs from any ...

6

Quick summary: Your model should still be well specified, as long as: 1) You do the analysis on a heavily traded asset, e.g. IBM on NYSE, and 2) You use heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors in your estimation framework, e.g. White's standard errors. I'm going to start the long answer by re-stating the question to make sure I've got it right. Let ...

6

This effect is coming from the supply and demand in the options markets. Many portfolio managers want (or need) to buy out of the money put options, and many are willing to sell out of the money call options (thereby funding the purchase of put options). Now, when the market goes down, dealers find themselves short vol and they need to buy options to cover ...

6

I think you did something wrong in translating the input to numerics. As pointed out by dm63 normal vols are quoted in basis points. Using equation A.67a) from the Hagan paper you linked we see (setting $\beta = 0$) $$\sigma_N(K) = \alpha\frac{\xi}{x(\xi)}\left[1+\frac{2-3\rho^2}{24}\nu^2\tau_{exp}\right]$$ where $\tau_{exp} = 0.25$ in your example and ...

6

In FX world, the ATM strike is the delta-neutral strike, that is, the absolute delta values of a call and the corresponding put are the same. Moreover, the delta can be premium adjusted or not depending on the particular currency pair. See the linked paper as mentioned by @AntoineConze. For AUD/USD, the delta is not premium adjusted, and then the delta-...

6

This is a consequence of transforming a Put on $S_T$ with strike $K$ into a Call on $(K S_0)/S_T$ with strike $S_0$ under the stock measure. The new set of parameters $r_p$, $q_p$, $\kappa_p$, ... etc . are those that correspond to the Heston dynamics for the process $((K S_0)/S_t, v_t)$ under the stock measure. General results on that kind of symmetry can ...

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