Near Exact Calculation of American Options

A new practical approach for the analysis of American (bond) options is developed which is a combination of the closed form solutions and binomial lattice models. The model is calibrated to the observed term structure of rates and traded volatilities and is arbitrage free. The convergence is very fast, but numerically intensive. By extrapolation the near exact premium of an American (bond) option can be calculated.

Bond valuation for generalized Langevin processes with integrated Lévy noise

Purpose Recently, Stein et al. (2016) studied theoretical properties and parameter estimation of continuous time processes derived as solutions of a generalized Langevin equation (GLE). In this paper, the authors extend the model to a wider class of memory kernels and then propose a bond and bond option valuation model based on the extension of the generalized Langevin process of Stein et al. (2016). Design/methodology/approach Bond and bond option pricing based on the proposed interest rate models presents new difficulties as the standard partial differential equation method of stochastic calculus for bond pricing cannot be used directly. The authors obtain bond and bond option prices by finding the closed form expression of the conditional characteristic function of the integrated short rate process driven by a general Lévy noise. Findings The authors obtain zero-coupon default-free bond and bond option prices for short rate models driven by a variety of Lévy processes, which include Vasicek model and the short rate model obtained by solving a second-order Langevin stochastic differential equation (SDE) as special cases. Originality/value Bond and bond option pricing plays an important role in capital markets and risk management. In this paper, the authors derive closed form expressions for bond and bond option prices for a wider class of interest rate models including second-order SDE models. Closed form expressions may be especially instrumental in facilitating parameter estimation in these models.

Asset pricing under general collateralization

We consider the valuation of collateralized derivative contracts such as bond option or Caplet contracts. We allow for posting different collaterals such as securities or cash for the derivatives and its hedges. The pricing is based on modeling the joint evolution of collateral rate and the spread between collaterals. The Hull–White models are applied to collateral rate and spread to generate the closed pricing formula for zero coupon bond option. We also derive the pricing formula for Caplet under the Libor Market model and SABR model framework.

EFFICIENT PIECEWISE TREES FOR THE GENERALIZED SKEW VASICEK MODEL WITH DISCONTINUOUS DRIFT

In this paper, we explore two new tree lattice methods, the piecewise binomial tree and the piecewise trinomial tree for both the bond prices and European/American bond option prices assuming that the short rate is given by a generalized skew Vasicek model with discontinuous drift coefficient. These methods build nonuniform jump size piecewise binomial/trinomial tree based on a tractable piecewise process, which is derived from the original process according to a transform. Numerical experiments of bonds and European/American bond options show that our approaches are efficient as well as reveal several price features of our model.

The bond and bond option market: The case of South Africa 1984–2014

Bond option transactions from a hedging perspective are currently almost non-existent in the South African bond and bond option market. As a result of comments and suggestions made by academics and independent observers a study was conducted in the South African bond options market amongst former and current bond option traders. The goals of the present study was to establish if bond options can be an effective hedging tool in the South African bond market, to conduct empirical tests on the basic option hedging strategies to ascertain these particular strategies’ suitability as hedges against investment risk by using actual market movements in the South African bond market, and to formulate recommendations that could be implemented to re-establish bond options as a viable hedging instruments in South Africa and also introduce it to Africa.