Foreign exchange symmetries

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Foreign exchange quanto options

A quanto option can be any cash-settled option, whose payoff is converted into a third currency at maturity at a pre-specified rate, called the quanto factor. There can be quanto plain vanilla, quanto barriers, quanto forward starts, quanto corridors, etc. The valuation theory is covered for example in [3] and [1]. --

Vanna-volga pricing

The vanna-volga method, also called the traders rule of thumb is an empirical procedure that can be used to infer an implied-volatility smile from three available quotes for a given maturity. It is based on the construction of locally replicating portfolios whose associated hedging costs are added to corresponding Black-Scholes prices to produce smile-consistent values. Besides being intuitive and easy to implement, this procedure has a clear financial interpretation, which further supports its use in practice. --

Characteristic functions in the Cheyette Interest Rate Model

We investigate the characteristic functions of multi-factor Cheyette Models and the application to the valuation of interest rate derivatives. The model dynamic can be classiffied as an affine-diffusion process implying an exponential structure of the characteristic function. The characteristic function is determined by a model specific system of ODEs, that can be solved explicitly for arbitrary Cheyette Models. The necessary transform inversion turns out to be numerically stable as a singularity can be removed. Thus the pricing methodology is reliable and we use it for the calibration of multi-factor Cheyette Models to caps. --Cheyette Model,Characteristic Function,Fourier Transform,Calibration of Multi-Factor Models

FX basket options

We explain the valuation and correlation hedging of Foreign Exchange Basket Options in a multi-dimensional Black-Scholes model that allows including the smile. The technique presented is a fast analytic approximation to an accurate solution of the valuation problem. --Foreign Exchange Optios,Basket Options,Correlation Risk,Volatility Smile Modelling,Ito-Taylor Expansion

On the valuation of fader and discrete barrier options in Heston's Stochastic Volatility Model

We focus on closed-form option pricing in Hestons stochastic volatility model, in which closed-form formulas exist only for few option types. Most of these closed-form solutions are constructed from characteristic functions. We follow this approach and derive multivariate characteristic functions depending on at least two spot values for different points in time. The derived characteristic functions are used as building blocks to set up (semi-) analytical pricing formulas for exotic options with payoffs depending on finitely many spot values such as fader options and discretely monitored barrier options. We compare our result with different numerical methods and examine accuracy and computational times. --exotic options,Heston Model,Characteristic Function,Multidimensional Fast Fourier Transforms

Efficient computation of option price sensitivities for options of American style

No front-office software can survive without providing derivatives of option prices with respect to underlying market or model parameters, the so called Greeks. If a closed form solution for an option exists, Greeks can be computed analytically and they are numerically stable. However, for American style options, there is no closed-form solution. The price is computed by binomial trees, finite difference methods or an analytic approximation. Taking derivatives of these prices leads to instable numerics or misleading results, specially for Greeks of higher order. We compare the computation of the Greeks in various pricing methods and conclude with the recommendation to use Leisen-Reimer trees. --American options,Greeks,Leisen-Reimer trees

FX volatility smile construction

The foreign exchange options market is one of the largest and most liquid OTC derivative markets in the world. Surprisingly, very little is known in the academic literature about the construction of the most important object in this market: The implied volatility smile. The smile construction procedure and the volatility quoting mechanisms are FX specific and differ significantly from other markets. We give a detailed overview of these quoting mechanisms and introduce the resulting smile construction problem. Furthermore, we provide a new formula which can be used for an efficient and robust FX smile construction. --FX Quotations,FX Smile Construction,Risk Reversal,Butterfly,Strangle,Delta Conventions,Malz Formula

On the cost of delayed currency fixing announcements

In Foreign Exchange Markets vanilla and barrier options are traded frequently. The market standard is a cutoff time of 10:00 a.m. in New York for the strike of vanillas and a knock-out event based on a continuously observed barrier in the inter bank market. However, many clients, particularly from Italy, prefer the cutoff and knock-out event to be based on the fixing published by the European Central Bank on the Reuters Page ECB37. These barrier options are called discretely monitored barrier options. While these options can be priced in several models by various techniques, the ECB source of the fixing causes two problems. First of all, it is not tradable, and secondly it is published with a delay of about 10 - 20 minutes. We examine here the effect of these problems on the hedge of those options and consequently suggest a cost based on the additional uncertainty encountered. --exotic options,currency fixings

Closed formula for options with discrete dividends and its derivatives

We present a closed pricing formula for European options under the BlackScholes model and formulas for its partial derivatives. The formulas are developed making use of Taylor series expansions and by expressing the spatial derivatives as expectations under special measures, as in Carr, together with an unusual change of measure technique that relies on the replacement of the initial condition. The closed formulas are attained for the case where no dividend payment policy is considered. Despite its small practical relevance, a digital dividend policy case is also considered which yields approximation formulas. The results are readily extensible to time dependent volatility models but no so for local-vol type models. For completeness, we reproduce the numerical results in Vellekoop and Nieuwenhuis using the formulas here obtained. The closed formulas presented here allow a fast calculation of prices or implied volatilities when compared with other valuation procedures that rely on numerical methods. --equity option,discrete dividend,hedging,analytic formula