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The paper introduces benchmark-neutral pricing and hedging for long-term contingent claims. It employs the growth optimal portfolio of the stocks as numeraire and the new benchmark-neutral pricing measure for pricing. For a realistic parsimonious model, this pricing measure turns out to be an equivalent probability measure, which is not the case for the risk-neutral pricing measure. Many risk-neutral prices of long-term contracts are more expensive than necessary. Benchmark-neutral pricing identifies the minimal possible prices of contingent claims, which is illustrated with remarkable accuracy for a long-term zero-coupon bond.

By assuming the existence of the growth optimal portfolio (GOP), the stationarity of GOP-volatilities, and the maximization of relative entropy, the paper applies the benchmark approach to the modeling of the long-term dynamics of continuous markets. It reveals conservation laws, where the GOP is shown to follow a time-transformed squared Bessel process of dimension four. Moreover, it predicts the convergence of the averages of the GOP-volatilities with respect to the driving independent Brownian motions toward a common level.

We show that in a financial market given by semimartingales an arbitrage opportunity, provided it exists, can only be exploited through short selling. This finding provides a theoretical basis for differences in regulation for financial services providers that are allowed to go short and those without short sales. The privilege to be allowed to short sell gives access to potential arbitrage opportunities, which creates by design a bankruptcy risk., Comment: 17 pages

Recursive marginal quantization (RMQ) allows the construction of optimal discrete grids for approximating solutions to stochastic differential equations in d-dimensions. Product Markovian quantization (PMQ) reduces this problem to d one-dimensional quantization problems by recursively constructing product quantizers, as opposed to a truly optimal quantizer. However, the standard Newton-Raphson method used in the PMQ algorithm suffers from numerical instabilities, inhibiting widespread adoption, especially for use in calibration. By directly specifying the random variable to be quantized at each time step, we show that PMQ, and RMQ in one dimension, can be expressed as standard vector quantization. This reformulation allows the application of the accelerated Lloyd's algorithm in an adaptive and robust procedure. Furthermore, in the case of stochastic volatility models, we extend the PMQ algorithm by using higher-order updates for the volatility or variance process. We illustrate the technique for European options, using the Heston model, and more exotic products, using the SABR model.

This paper offers a systematic investigation on the existence of equivalent local martingale deflators, which are multiplicative special semimartingales, in financial markets given by positive semimartingales. In particular, it shows that the existence of such deflators can be characterized by means of the modified semimartingale characteristics. Several examples illustrate our results. Furthermore, we provide interpretations of the deflators from an economic point of view., Comment: 41 pages

Consider a financial market with nonnegative semimartingales which does not need to have a num\'{e}raire. We are interested in the absence of arbitrage in the sense that no self-financing portfolio gives rise to arbitrage opportunities, where we are allowed to add a savings account to the market. We will prove that in this sense the market is free of arbitrage if and only if there exists an equivalent local martingale deflator which is a multiplicative special semimartingale. In this case, the additional savings account relates to the finite variation part of the multiplicative decomposition of the deflator., Comment: 37 pages

We provide a general framework for no-arbitrage concepts in topological vector lattices, which covers many of the well-known no-arbitrage concepts as particular cases. The main structural condition we impose is that the outcomes of trading strategies with initial wealth zero and those with positive initial wealth have the structure of a convex cone. As one consequence of our approach, the concepts NUPBR, NAA$_1$ and NA$_1$ may fail to be equivalent in our general setting. Furthermore, we derive abstract versions of the fundamental theorem of asset pricing (FTAP), including an abstract FTAP on Banach function spaces, and investigate when the FTAP is warranted in its classical form with a separating measure. We also consider a financial market with semimartingales which does not need to have a num\'{e}raire, and derive results which show the links between the no-arbitrage concepts by only using the theory of topological vector lattices and well-known results from stochastic analysis in a sequence of short proofs., Comment: 35 pages

We investigate the existence of affine realizations for L\'{e}vy driven interest rate term structure models under the real-world probability measure, which so far has only been studied under an assumed risk-neutral probability measure. For models driven by Wiener processes, all results obtained under the risk-neutral approach concerning the existence of affine realizations are transferred to the general case. A similar result holds true for models driven by compound Poisson processes with finite jump size distributions. However, in the presence of jumps with infinite activity we obtain severe restrictions on the structure of the market price of risk; typically, it must even be constant., Comment: 31 pages

In this paper we consider the pricing of variable annuities (VAs) with guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits. We consider two pricing approaches, the classical risk-neutral approach and the benchmark approach, and we examine the associated static and optimal behaviors of both the investor and insurer. The first model considered is the so-called minimal market model, where pricing is achieved using the benchmark approach. The benchmark approach was introduced by Platen in 2001 and has received wide acceptance in the finance community. Under this approach, valuing an asset involves determining the minimum-valued replicating portfolio, with reference to the growth optimal portfolio under the real-world probability measure, and it both subsumes classical risk-neutral pricing as a particular case and extends it to situations where risk-neutral pricing is impossible. The second model is the Black-Scholes model for the equity index, where the pricing of contracts is performed within the risk-neutral framework. Crucially, we demonstrate that when the insurer prices and reserves using the Black-Scholes model, while the insured employs a dynamic withdrawal strategy based on the minimal market model, the insurer may be underestimating the value and associated reserves of the contract.

This paper provides a methodology for fast and accurate pricing of the long-dated contracts that arise as the building blocks of insurance and pension fund agreements. It applies the recursive marginal quantization (RMQ) and joint recursive marginal quantization (JRMQ) algorithms outside the framework of traditional risk-neutral methods by pricing options under the real-world probability measure, using the benchmark approach. The benchmark approach is reviewed, and the real-world pricing theorem is presented and applied to various long-dated claims to obtain less expensive prices than suggested by traditional risk-neutral valuation. The growth-optimal portfolio (GOP), the central object of the benchmark approach, is modelled using the time-dependent constant elasticity of variance model (TCEV). Analytic European option prices are derived and the RMQ algorithm is used to efficiently and accurately price Bermudan options on the GOP. The TCEV model is then combined with a $3/2$ stochastic short-rate model and RMQ is used to price zero-coupon bonds and zero-coupon bond options, highlighting the departure from risk-neutral pricing.

This paper proposes a paradigm shift in the valuation of long term annuities, away from classical no-arbitrage valuation towards valuation under the real world probability measure. Furthermore, we apply this valuation method to two examples of annuity products, one having annual payments linked to a mortality index and the savings account and the other having annual payments linked to a mortality index and an equity index with a guarantee that is linked to the same mortality index and the savings account. Out-of-sample hedge simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of real world valuation. In contrast to risk neutral valuation, which is a form of relative valuation, the long term average excess return of the equity market comes into play. Instead of the savings account, the num\'eraire portfolio is employed as the fundamental unit of value in the analysis. The num\'eraire portfolio is the strictly positive, tradable portfolio that when used as benchmark makes all benchmarked nonnegative portfolios supermartingales. The benchmarked real world value of a benchmarked contingent claim equals its real world conditional expectation. This yields the minimal possible value for its hedgeable part and minimizes the fluctuations for its benchmarked hedge error. Under classical assumptions, actuarial and risk neutral valuation emerge as special cases of the proposed real world valuation. In long term liability and asset valuation, the proposed real world valuation can lead to significantly lower values than suggested by classical approaches when an equivalent risk neutral probability measure does not exist., Comment: 30-40 pages, 11 figures

We introduce and study the notion of sure profit via flash strategy, consisting of a high-frequency limit of buy-and-hold trading strategies. In a fully general setting, without imposing any semimartingale restriction, we prove that there are no sure profits via flash strategies if and only if asset prices do not exhibit predictable jumps. This result relies on the general theory of processes and provides the most general formulation of the well-known fact that, in an arbitrage-free financial market, asset prices (including dividends) should not exhibit jumps of a predictable direction or magnitude at predictable times. We furthermore show that any price process is always right-continuous in the absence of sure profits. Our results are robust under small transaction costs and imply that, under minimal assumptions, price changes occurring at scheduled dates should only be due to unanticipated information releases., Comment: 16 pages; revised and expanded version

The paper predicts an Efficient Market Property for the equity market, where stocks, when denominated in units of the growth optimal portfolio (GP), have zero instantaneous expected returns. Well-diversified equity portfolios are shown to approximate the GP, which explains the well-observed good performance of equally weighted portfolios. The proposed hierarchically weighted index (HWI) is shown to be an even better proxy of the GP. It sets weights equal within industrial and geographical groupings of stocks. When using the HWI as proxy of the GP the Efficient Market Property cannot be easily rejected and appears to be very robust., Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures

This paper studies long term investing by an investor that maximizes either expected utility from terminal wealth or from consumption. We introduce the concepts of a generalized stochastic discount factor (SDF) and of the minimum price to attain target payouts. The paper finds that the dynamics of the SDF needs to be captured and not the entire market dynamics, which simplifies significantly practical implementations of optimal portfolio strategies. We pay particular attention to the case where the SDF is equal to the inverse of the growth-optimal portfolio in the given market. Then, optimal wealth evolution is closely linked to the growth optimal portfolio. In particular, our concepts allow us to reconcile utility optimization with the practitioner approach of growth investing. We illustrate empirically that our new framework leads to improved lifetime consumption-portfolio choice and asset allocation strategies.

Recursive Marginal Quantization (RMQ) allows fast approximation of solutions to stochastic differential equations in one-dimension. When applied to two factor models, RMQ is inefficient due to the fact that the optimization problem is usually performed using stochastic methods, e.g., Lloyd's algorithm or Competitive Learning Vector Quantization. In this paper, a new algorithm is proposed that allows RMQ to be applied to two-factor stochastic volatility models, which retains the efficiency of gradient-descent techniques. By margining over potential realizations of the volatility process, a significant decrease in computational effort is achieved when compared to current quantization methods. Additionally, techniques for modelling the correct zero-boundary behaviour are used to allow the new algorithm to be applied to cases where the previous methods would fail. The proposed technique is illustrated for European options on the Heston and Stein-Stein models, while a more thorough application is considered in the case of the popular SABR model, where various exotic options are also priced.

Catastrophe risk is a major threat faced by individuals, companies, and entire economies. Catastrophe (CAT) bonds have emerged as a method to offset this risk and a corresponding literature has developed that attempts to provide a market-consistent pricing methodology for these and other long-dated, insurance-type contracts. This paper aims to unify and generalize several of the widely-used pricing approaches for long-dated contracts with a focus on stylized CAT bonds and market-consistent valuation. It proposes a loading pricing concept that combines the theoretically possible minimal price of a contract with its formally obtained risk neutral price, without creating economically meaningful arbitrage. A loading degree controls how much influence the formally obtained risk neutral price has on the market price. A key finding is that this loading degree has to be constant for a minimally fluctuating contract, and is an important, measurable characteristic for prices of long-dated contracts. Loading pricing allows long-dated, insurance-type contracts to be priced less expensively and with higher return on investment than under classical pricing approaches. Loading pricing enables insurance companies to accumulate systematically reserves needed to manage its risk of ruin in a market consistent manner.

In this paper we show how to hedge a zero coupon bond with a smaller amount of initial capital than required by the classical risk neutral paradigm, whose (trivial) hedging strategy does not suggest to invest in the risky assets. Long dated zero coupon bonds we derive, invest first primarily in risky securities and when approaching more and more the maturity date they increase also more and more the fraction invested in fixed income. The conventional wisdom of financial planners suggesting investor to invest in risky securities when they are young and mostly in fixed income when they approach retirement, is here made rigorous. The paper provides a strong warning for life insurers, pension fund managers and long term investors to take the possibility of less expensive products seriously to avoid the adverse consequences of the low interest rate regimes that many developed economies face., Comment: 42 pages

We study the pricing and hedging of derivatives in incomplete financial markets by considering the local risk-minimization method in the context of the benchmark approach, which will be called benchmarked local risk-minimization. We show that the proposed benchmarked local risk-minimization allows to handle under extremely weak assumptions a much richer modeling world than the classical methodology.

We consider the portfolio choice problem for a long-run investor in a general continuous semimartingale model. We suggest to use path-wise growth optimality as the decision criterion and encode preferences through restrictions on the class of admissible wealth processes. Specifically, the investor is only interested in strategies which satisfy a given linear drawdown constraint. The paper introduces the numeraire property through the notion of expected relative return and shows that drawdown-constrained strategies with the numeraire property exist and are unique, but may depend on the financial planning horizon. However, when sampled at the times of its maximum and asymptotically as the time-horizon becomes distant, the drawdown-constrained numeraire portfolio is given explicitly through a model-independent transformation of the unconstrained numeraire portfolio. Further, it is established that the asymptotically growth-optimal strategy is obtained as limit of numeraire strategies on finite horizons., Comment: 32 pages - second, somewhat revised, version

We discuss suitable classes of diffusion processes, for which functionals relevant to finance can be computed via Monte Carlo methods. In particular, we construct exact simulation schemes for processes from this class. However, should the finance problem under consideration require e.g. continuous monitoring of the processes, the simulation algorithm can easily be embedded in a multilevel Monte Carlo scheme. We choose to introduce the finance problems under the benchmark approach, and find that this approach allows us to exploit conveniently the analytical tractability of these diffusion processes., Comment: 19 pages

This paper derives explicit formulas for both the small and large time limits of the implied volatility in the minimal market model. It is shown that interest rates do impact on the implied volatility in the long run even though they are negligible in the short time limit., Comment: 50 pages, 4 figures, typo on page 18 corrected

This paper investigates the pricing and hedging of variance swaps under a $3/2$ volatility model. Explicit pricing and hedging formulas of variance swaps are obtained under the benchmark approach, which only requires the existence of the num\'{e}raire portfolio. The growth optimal portfolio is the num\'{e}raire portfolio and used as num\'{e}raire together with the real world probability measure as pricing measure. This pricing concept provides minimal prices for variance swaps even when an equivalent risk neutral probability measure does not exist., Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures

We propose a general framework to study last passage times, suprema and drawdowns of a large class of stochastic processes. A central role in our approach is played by processes of class Sigma. After investigating convergence properties and a family of transformations that leave processes of class Sigma invariant, we provide three general representation results. The first one allows to recover a process of class Sigma from its final value and the last time it visited the origin. In many situations this gives access to the distribution of the last time a stochastic process hit a certain level or was equal to its running maximum. It also leads to a formula recently discovered by Madan, Roynette and Yor expressing put option prices in terms of last passage times. Our second representation result is a stochastic integral representation of certain functionals of processes of class Sigma, and the third one gives a formula for their conditional expectations. From the latter one can deduce the laws of a variety of interesting random variables such as running maxima, drawdowns and maximum drawdowns of suitably stopped processes. As an application we discuss the pricing and hedging of options that depend on the running maximum of an underlying price process and are triggered when the underlying price drops to a given level or alternatively, when the drawdown or relative drawdown of the underlying price attains a given height.

In a financial market model, we consider variations of the problem of minimizing the expected time to upcross a certain wealth level. For exponential Levy markets, we show the asymptotic optimality of the growth-optimal portfolio for the above problem and obtain tight bounds for the value function for any wealth level. In an Ito market, we employ the concept of market time, which is a clock that runs according to the underlying market growth. We show the optimality of the growth-optimal portfolio for minimizing the expected market time to reach any wealth level. This reveals a general definition of market time which can be useful from an investor's point of view. We utilize this last definition to extend the previous results in a general semimartingale setting., Comment: 13 pages

The Dybvig-Ingersoll-Ross (DIR) theorem states that, in arbitrage-free term structure models, long-term yields and forward rates can never fall. We present a refined version of the DIR theorem, where we identify the reciprocal of the maturity date as the maximal order that long-term rates at earlier dates can dominate long-term rates at later dates. The viability assumption imposed on the market model is weaker than those appearing previously in the literature., Comment: 12 pages; second revised version, text rearranged and some content added.

A financial market model with general semimartingale asset-price processes and where agents can only trade using no-short-sales strategies is considered. We show that wealth processes using continuous trading can be approximated very closely by wealth processes using simple combinations of buy-and-hold trading. This approximation is based on controlling the proportions of wealth invested in the assets. As an application, the utility maximization problem is considered and it is shown that optimal expected utilities and wealth processes resulting from continuous trading can be approximated arbitrarily well by the use of simple combinations of buy-and-hold strategies., Comment: 11 pages. Revised version. This is the 2nd part of what comprised the older arxiv submission "On financial markets where only buy-and-hold trading is possible" from the two authors

This paper demonstrates the usefulness and importance of the concept of honest times to financial modeling. It studies a financial market with asset prices that follow jump-diffusions with negative jumps. The central building block of the market model is its growth optimal portfolio (GOP), which maximizes the growth rate of strictly positive portfolios. Primary security account prices, when expressed in units of the GOP, turn out to be nonnegative local martingales. In the proposed framework an equivalent risk neutral probability measure need not exist. Derivative prices are obtained as conditional expectations of corresponding future payoffs, with the GOP as numeraire and the real world probability as pricing measure. The time when the global maximum of a portfolio with no positive jumps, when expressed in units of the GOP, is reached, is shown to be a generic representation of an honest time. We provide a general formula for the law of such honest times and compute the conditional distributions of the global maximum of a portfolio in this framework. Moreover, we provide a stochastic integral representation for uniformly integrable martingales whose terminal values are functions of the global maximum of a portfolio. These formulae are model independent and universal. We also specialize our results to some examples where we hedge a payoff that arrives at an honest time.

A financial market model where agents trade using realistic combinations of buy-and-hold strategies is considered. Minimal assumptions are made on the discounted asset-price process - in particular, the semimartingale property is not assumed. Via a natural market viability assumption, namely, absence of arbitrages of the first kind, we establish that discounted asset-prices have to be semimartingales. In a slightly more specialized case, we extend the previous result in a weakened version of the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing that involves strictly positive supermartingale deflators rather than Equivalent Martingale Measures., Comment: 11 pages. The text has been thoroughly revised and there are new results. This is the 1st part of what comprised the older arxiv submission arXiv:0803.1890 "On financial markets where only buy-and-hold trading is possible" by the two authors