A new numerical method on American option pricing

Abstract

Mathematically, the Black-Scholes model of American option pricing is a free boundary problem of partial differential equation. It is well known that this model is a nonlinear problem, and it has no closed form solution. We can only obtain an approximate solution by numerical method, but the precision and stability are hard to control, because the singularity at the exercise boundary near expiration date has a great effect on precision and stability for numerical method. We propose a new numerical method, FDA method, to solve the American option pricing problem, which combines advantages the Semi-Analytical Method and the Front-Fixed Difference Method. Using the FDA method overcomes the difficulty resulting from the singularity at the terminal of optimal exercise boundary. A large amount of calculation shows that the FDA method is more accurate and stable than other numerical methods.