Stochastic programs without duality gaps

This paper studies dynamic stochastic optimization problems parametrized by a random variable. Such problems arise in many applications in operations research and mathematical finance. We give sufficient conditions for the existence of solutions and the absence of a duality gap. Our proof uses extended dynamic programming equations, whose validity is established under new relaxed conditions that generalize certain no-arbitrage conditions from mathematical finance

Superhedging in illiquid markets

We study contingent claims in a discrete-time market model where trading costs are given by convex functions and portfolios are constrained by convex sets. In addition to classical frictionless markets and markets with transaction costs or bid-ask spreads, our framework covers markets with nonlinear illiquidity effects for large instantaneous trades. We derive dual characterizations of superhedging conditions for contingent claim processes in a market without a cash account. The characterizations are given in terms of stochastic discount factors that correspond to martingale densities in a market with a cash account. The dual representations are valid under a topological condition and a weak consistency condition reminiscent of the ``law of one price'', both of which are implied by the no arbitrage condition in the case of classical perfectly liquid market models. We give alternative sufficient conditions that apply to market models with nonlinear cost functions and portfolio constraints

A note on super-hedging for investor-producers

We study the situation of an agent who can trade on a financial market and can also transform some assets into others by means of a production system, in order to price and hedge derivatives on produced goods. This framework is motivated by the case of an electricity producer who wants to hedge a position on the electricity spot price and can trade commodities which are inputs for his system. This extends the essential results of Bouchard & Nguyen Huu (2011) to continuous time markets. We introduce the generic concept of conditional sure profit along the idea of the no sure profit condition of R\`asonyi (2009). The condition allows one to provide a closedness property for the set of super-hedgeable claims in a very general financial setting. Using standard separation arguments, we then deduce a dual characterization of the latter and provide an application to power futures pricing

Arbitrage and deflators in illiquid markets

This paper presents a stochastic model for discrete-time trading in financial markets where trading costs are given by convex cost functions and portfolios are constrained by convex sets. The model does not assume the existence of a cash account/numeraire. In addition to classical frictionless markets and markets with transaction costs or bid-ask spreads, our framework covers markets with nonlinear illiquidity effects for large instantaneous trades. In the presence of nonlinearities, the classical notion of arbitrage turns out to have two equally meaningful generalizations, a marginal and a scalable one. We study their relations to state price deflators by analyzing two auxiliary market models describing the local and global behavior of the cost functions and constraints

Consistent Price Systems and Arbitrage Opportunities of the Second Kind in Models with Transaction Costs.

In contrast with the classical models of frictionless financial markets, market models with proportional transaction costs, even satisfying usual no-arbitrage properties, may admit arbitrage opportunities of the second kind. This means that there are self-financing portfolios with initial endowments laying outside the solvency region but ending inside. Such a phenomenon was discovered by M. R´asonyi in the discrete-time framework. In this note we consider a rather abstract continuous-time setting and prove necessary and sufficient conditions for the property which we call No Free Lunch of the 2nd Kind, NFL2. We provide a number of equivalent conditions elucidating, in particular, the financial meaning of the property B which appeared as an indispensable “technical” hypothesis in previous papers on hedging (super-replication) of contingent claims under transaction costs. We show that it is equivalent to another condition on the “richness” of the set of consistent price systems, close to the condition PCE introduced by R´asonyi. In the last section we deduce the R´asonyi theorem from our general result using specific features of discrete-time models.Consistent price systems; No Free Lunch; Arbitrage; Transaction costs; Martingales; Set-valued processes;