Sticky processes, local and true martingales

We prove that for a so-called sticky process $S$ there exists an equivalent probability $Q$ and a $Q$-martingale $\tilde{S}$ that is arbitrarily close to $S$ in $L^p(Q)$ norm. For continuous $S$, $\tilde{S}$ can be chosen arbitrarily close to $S$ in supremum norm. In the case where $S$ is a local martingale we may choose $Q$ arbitrarily close to the original probability in the total variation norm. We provide examples to illustrate the power of our results and present applications in mathematical finance

Sticky continuous processes have consistent price systems

Under proportional transaction costs, a price process is said to have a consistent price system, if there is a semimartingale with an equivalent martingale measure that evolves within the bid-ask spread. We show that a continuous, multi-asset price process has a consistent price system, under arbitrarily small proportional transaction costs, if it satisfies a natural multi-dimensional generalization of the stickiness condition introduced by Guasoni [Math. Finance 16(3), 569-582 (2006)].Comment: 10 pages, v3: incorporates minor corrections and the proof of the main result has been clarified, to appear in Journal of Applied Probabilit

On the Existence of Consistent Price Systems

We formulate a sufficient condition for the existence of a consistent price system (CPS), which is weaker than the conditional full support condition (CFS) introduced by Guasoni, Rasonyi, and Schachermayer [Ann. Appl. Probab., 18(2008), pp. 491-520] . We use the new condition to show the existence of CPSs for certain processes that fail to have the CFS property. In particular this condition gives sufficient conditions, under which a continuous function of a process with CFS admits a CPS, while the CFS property might be lost.Comment: To appear in "Stochastic Analysis and Applications". Keywords: Consistent pricing systems, No-arbitrage, Transaction costs, Full support, Conditional Full Support, Stability under Composition with Continuous Function

No arbitrage without semimartingales

We show that with suitable restrictions on allowable trading strategies, one has no arbitrage in settings where the traditional theory would admit arbitrage possibilities. In particular, price processes that are not semimartingales are possible in our setting, for example, fractional Brownian motion.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-AAP554 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

A note on closed-form spread option valuation under log-normal models

In the papers Carmona and Durrleman [7] and Bjerksund and Stensland [1], closed form approximations for spread call option prices were studied under the log normal models. In this paper, we give an alternative closed form formula for the price of spread call options under the log-normal models also. Our formula can be seen as a generalization of the closed-form formula presented in Bjerksund and Stensland [1] as their formula can be obtained by selecting special parameter values to our formula. Numerical tests show that our formula performs better for certain range of model parameters than the closed-form formula presented in Bjerksund and Stensland [1].Comment: 37 Pages, 3 table

A discussion of stochastic dominance and mean-CVaR optimal portfolio problems based on mean-variance-mixture models

The classical Markowitz mean-variance model uses variance as a risk measure and calculates frontier portfolios in closed form by using standard optimization techniques. For general mean-risk models such closed form optimal portfolios are difficult to obtain. In this note, we obtain closed form expressions for frontier portfolios under mean-CVaR criteria when return vectors have normal mean-variance mixture (NMVM) distributions. To achieve this goal, we first present necessary conditions for stochastic dominance within the class of one dimensional NMVM models and then we apply them to portfolio optimization problems. Our main result in this paper states that when return vectors follow NMVM distributions the associated mean- CVaR frontier portfolios can be obtained by optimizing a Markowitz mean-variance model with an appropriately adjusted return vectorComment: 19page

On the Stickiness Property

In [2] the notion of stickiness for stochastic processes was introduced. It was also shown that stickiness implies absense of arbitrage in a market with proportional transaction costs. In this paper, we investigate the notion of stickiness further. In particular, we give examples of processes that are not semimartingales but are sticky.

No Arbitrage Conditions For Simple Trading Strategies

Strict local martingales may admit arbitrage opportunities with respect to the class of simple trading strategies. (Since there is no possibility of using doubling strategies in this framework, the losses are not assumed to be bounded from below.) We show that for a class of non-negative strict local martingales, the strong Markov property implies the no arbitrage property with respect to the class of simple trading strategies. This result can be seen as a generalization of a similar result on three dimensional Bessel process in [3]. We also pro- vide no arbitrage conditions for stochastic processes within the class of simple trading strategies with shortsale restriction.