THE NUMÉRAIRE PROPERTY AND LONG-TERM GROWTH OPTIMALITY FOR DRAWDOWN-CONSTRAINED INVESTMENTS

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. We consider the portfolio choice problem for a long-run investor in a general continuous semimartingale model. We combine the decision criterion of pathwise growth optimality with a flexible specification of attitude toward risk, encoded by a linear drawdown constraint imposed on admissible wealth processes. We define the constrained numéraire property through the notion of expected relative return and prove that drawdown-constrained numéraire portfolio exists and is unique, but may depend on the investment horizon. However, when sampled at the times of its maximum and asymptotically as the time-horizon becomes distant, the drawdown-constrained numéraire portfolio is given explicitly through a model-independent transformation of the unconstrained numéraire portfolio. The asymptotically growth-optimal strategy is obtained as limit of numéraire strategies on finite horizons

Local times and Tanaka--Meyer formulae for c\`adl\`ag paths

Three concepts of local times for deterministic c{\`a}dl{\`a}g paths are developed and the corresponding pathwise Tanaka--Meyer formulae are provided. For semimartingales, it is shown that their sample paths a.s. satisfy all three pathwise definitions of local times and that all coincide with the classical semimartingale local time. In particular, this demonstrates that each definition constitutes a legit pathwise counterpart of probabilistic local times. The last pathwise construction presented in the paper expresses local times in terms of normalized numbers of interval crossings and does not depend on the choice of the sequence of grids. This is a new result also for c{\`a}dl{\`a}g semimartingales, which may be related to previous results of Nicole El~Karoui and Marc Lemieux

Robust pricing and hedging of double no-touch options

Double no-touch options, contracts which pay out a fixed amount provided an underlying asset remains within a given interval, are commonly traded, particularly in FX markets. In this work, we establish model-free bounds on the price of these options based on the prices of more liquidly traded options (call and digital call options). Key steps are the construction of super- and sub-hedging strategies to establish the bounds, and the use of Skorokhod embedding techniques to show the bounds are the best possible. In addition to establishing rigorous bounds, we consider carefully what is meant by arbitrage in settings where there is no {\it a priori} known probability measure. We discuss two natural extensions of the notion of arbitrage, weak arbitrage and weak free lunch with vanishing risk, which are needed to establish equivalence between the lack of arbitrage and the existence of a market model.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figure

Utility theory front to back:Inferring utility from agents' choices

We pursue an inverse approach to utility theory and associated consumption and investment problems. Instead of specifying a utility function and deriving the actions of an agent, we assume that we observe the actions of the agent (i.e. consumption and investment strategies) and ask if it is possible to derive a utility function for which the observed behavior is optimal. We work in continuous time both in a deterministic and stochastic setting. In the deterministic setup, we find that there are infinitely many utility functions generating a given consumption pattern. In the stochastic setting of a geometric Brownian motion market it turns out that the consumption and investment strategies have to satisfy a consistency condition (PDE) if they are to come from a classical utility maximization problem. We show further that important characteristics of the agent such as risk attitudes (e.g., DARA) can be deduced directly from the agent's consumption and investment choices. </jats:p

Scaled penalization of Brownian motion with drift and the Brownian ascent

We study a scaled version of a two-parameter Brownian penalization model introduced by Roynette-Vallois-Yor in arXiv:math/0511102. The original model penalizes Brownian motion with drift $h\in\mathbb{R}$ by the weight process ${\big(\exp(\nu S_t):t\geq 0\big)}$ where $\nu\in\mathbb{R}$ and $\big(S_t:t\geq 0\big)$ is the running maximum of the Brownian motion. It was shown there that the resulting penalized process exhibits three distinct phases corresponding to different regions of the $(\nu,h)$-plane. In this paper, we investigate the effect of penalizing the Brownian motion concurrently with scaling and identify the limit process. This extends a result of Roynette-Yor for the ${\nu<0,~h=0}$ case to the whole parameter plane and reveals two additional "critical" phases occurring at the boundaries between the parameter regions. One of these novel phases is Brownian motion conditioned to end at its maximum, a process we call the Brownian ascent. We then relate the Brownian ascent to some well-known Brownian path fragments and to a random scaling transformation of Brownian motion recently studied by Rosenbaum-Yor.Comment: 32 pages; made additions to Section

Patterns in random walks and Brownian motion

We ask if it is possible to find some particular continuous paths of unit length in linear Brownian motion. Beginning with a discrete version of the problem, we derive the asymptotics of the expected waiting time for several interesting patterns. These suggest corresponding results on the existence/non-existence of continuous paths embedded in Brownian motion. With further effort we are able to prove some of these existence and non-existence results by various stochastic analysis arguments. A list of open problems is presented.Comment: 31 pages, 4 figures. This paper is published at http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-18585-9_

The robust superreplication problem: a dynamic approach

In the frictionless discrete time financial market of Bouchard and Nutz [Ann. Appl. Probab., 25 (2015), pp. 823--859] we consider a trader who is required to hedge $\xi$ in a risk-conservative way relative to a family of probability measures ${\cal P}$. We first describe the evolution of $\pi_t(\xi)$---the superhedging price at time $t$ of the liability $\xi$ at maturity $T$---via a dynamic programming principle, show that $\pi_t(\xi)$ can be seen as a concave envelope of $\pi_{t+1}(\xi)$ evaluated at today's prices, and prove its dual characterization. Under suitable assumptions, we show that the robust superreplication price is equal to the classical $P$-superhedging price for an extreme prior $P\in {\cal P}$. Then we consider an optimal investment problem for the trader who is rolling over her robust superhedge and phrase this as a robust maximization problem, where the expected utility of intertemporal consumption is optimized subject to a robust superhedging constraint. This utility maximization is carried out under a subset ${\cal P}^u$ of ${\cal P}$ representing the trader's subjective views on market dynamics. Under suitable assumptions on the trader's utility functions, we show that optimal investment and consumption strategies exist and further specify when, and in what sense, these may be unique