Pricing Bounds on Barrier Options

From Continuous to Discrete: Studies on Continuity Corrections and Monte Carlo Simulation with Applications to Barrier Options and American Options Menghui Cao This dissertation 1) shows continuity corrections for first passage probabilities of Brownian bridge and barrier joint probabilities, which are applied to the pricing of two-dimensional barrier and partial barrier options, and 2) introduces new variance reduction techniques and computational improvements to Monte Carlo methods for pricing American options. The joint distribution of Brownian motion and its first passage time has found applications in many areas, including sequential analysis, pricing of barrier options, and credit risk modeling. There are, however, no simple closed-form solutions for these joint probabilities in a discrete-time setting. Chapter 2 shows that, discrete two-dimensional barrier and partial barrier joint probabilities can be approximated by their continuous-time probabilities with remarkable accuracy after shifting the barrier away from the underlying by a factor of βσ √ ∆t. We achieve this through a uniform continuity correction theorem on the first passage probabilities for Brownian bridge, extending relevant results in Siegmund (1985a). The continuity corrections are applied to the pricing of two-dimensional barrier and partial barrier options, extending the results in Broadie, Glasserman & Kou (1997) on one-dimensional barrier options. One interesting aspect is that for type B partial barrier options, the barrier correction cannot be applied throughout one pricing formula, but only to some barrier values and leaving the other unchanged, the direction of correction may also vary within one

Implementation of the modified Monte Carlo simulation for evaluate the barrier option prices

Pricing Continuously Monitored Barrier Options Under the Sabr Model: A Closed-Form Approximation

Barrier option pricing under the 2-hypergeometric stochastic volatility model

The pricing and static hedging of multi-step double barrier options

Author index of volume 144

We discuss here an alternative interpretation of the familiar binomial lattice approach to option pricing, illustrating it with reference to pricing of barrier options, one- and two-sided, with fixed, moving or partial barriers, and also the pricing of American put options. It has often been observed that if one tries to price a barrier option using a binomial lattice, then one can find slow convergence to the true price unless care is taken over the placing of the grid points in the lattice; see, for example, the work of Boyle & Lau [2]. The placing of grid points is critical whether one uses a dynamic programming approach, or a Monte Carlo approach, and this can make it difficult to compute hedge ratios, for example. The problems arise from translating a crossing of the barrier for the continuous diffusion process into an event for the binomial approximation. In this article, we show that it is not necessary to make clever choices of the grid positioning, and by interpreting the nature of the binomial approximation appropriately, we are able to derive very quick and accurate pricings of barrier options. The interpretation we give here is applicable much more widely, and helps to smooth out the ‘odd-even’ ripples in the option price as a function of time-to-go which are a common feature of binomial lattice pricing.

In this article barrier options are analytically evaluated under the regime-switching model, with the volatility of the underlying price being allowed to jump between different states following a Markov chain. The target barrier option prices are expressed in a Fourier cosine series after a particular approximation formula is obtained. The accuracy and efficiency of the newly derived formula are demonstrated through numerical experiments, demonstrating the formula’s potential for practical applications. TOPICS:Analysis of individual factors/risk premia, factor-based models, options Key Findings • Barrier options are analytically evaluated under the regime-switching model. • This approximation formula is written in the form of a converged Fourier cosine series. • The formula is shown to be very accurate and efficient, and has a great potential to be applied in practice.

A barrier option is an exotic path-dependent option contract that, depending on terms, automatically expires or can be exercised only if the underlying asset ever reaches a predetermined barrier price. Using a partial differential equation approach, we provide an integral representation of the barrier option price via the Mellin transform. In the case of knock-out barrier options, we obtain a decomposition of the barrier option price into the corresponding European option value minus a barrier premium. The integral representation formula can be expressed in terms of the solution to a system of coupled Volterra integral equations of the first kind. Moreover, we suggest some possible numerical approaches to the problem of barrier option pricing.

An efficient option pricing method based on Fourier-cosine expansions was presented by Fang and Oosterlee for European options in 2008, and later, this method was also used by them to price early-exercise options and barrier options respectively, in 2009. In this paper, this method is applied to price discretely American barrier options in which the monitored dates are many times more than the exercise dates. The corresponding algorithm is presented to practical option pricing. Numerical experiments show that this algorithm works very well and efficiently for different exponential Levy asset models.

Valuation of piecewise linear barrier options

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>We continue a series of papers devoted to construction of semi-analytic solutions for barrier options. These options are written on underlying following some simple one-factor diffusion model, but all the parameters of the model as well as the barriers are time-dependent. We managed to show that these solutions are systematically more efficient for pricing and calibration than, e.g., the corresponding finite-difference solvers. In this paper we extend this technique to pricing double barrier options and present two approaches to solving it: the General Integral transform method and the Heat Potential method. Our results confirm that for double barrier options these semi-analytic techniques are also more efficient than the traditional numerical methods used to solve this type of problems.</p>

Static super-replicating strategies for a class of exotic options

We consider the problem of pricing derivative securities which involve a barrier clause. We give general techniques to calculate, or estimate accurately, barrier option prices, using methods for estimating diffusion process boundary hitting times. The solution gives a simple, easy–to–use, method for calculating barrier option prices.

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of the Monte Carlo antithetic variate and control variate methods in pricing knock-out barrier options compared to the standard Monte Carlo method. The main problem in barrier option pricing is the high variance of estimates, which can reduce the accuracy and efficiency of results. The standard Monte Carlo method often requires a very large number of simulations to achieve stable results, which is computationally inefficient. To address this issue, this study employs variance reduction techniques, antithetic variate, and control variate. The findings indicate that both methods offer higher accuracy in price estimation compared to the standard Monte Carlo method. Further analysis reveals that the control variate method is more effective for pricing up and out barrier call options and down and out barrier call options, while the antithetic variate method excels in pricing up and out barrier put options and down and out barrier put options. This study underscores the importance of selecting the appropriate method according to the type of option involved to achieve accurate and efficient estimations.