Replication Argument Research Articles

A Simple Pricing Model for Plain-Vanilla Dividend Futures Options

This technical note provides a detailed description of a simple but effective modeling solution to mark and risk manage plain-vanilla options on dividend futures. We focus on equity indices, as dividend products for single stocks are less liquid and observable and we derive a simple pricing formula for dividend futures options based on a dynamic replication argument. The simplicity of the derived pricing methodology makes it particularly relevant for marking-making purpose.

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The Replication Argument for Incompatibilism

In this paper, I articulate an argument for incompatibilism about moral responsibility and determinism. My argument comes in the form of an extended story, modeled loosely on Peter van Inwagen’s “rollback argument” scenario. I thus call it “the replication argument.” As I aim to bring out, though the argument is inspired by so-called “manipulation” and “original design” arguments, the argument is not a version of either such argument—and plausibly has advantages over both. The result, I believe, is a more convincing incompatibilist argument than those we have considered previously.

Equal risk pricing under convex trading constraints

In an incomplete market model where convex trading constraints are imposed upon the underlying assets, it is no longer possible to obtain unique arbitrage-free prices for derivatives using standard replication arguments. Most existing derivative pricing approaches involve the selection of a suitable martingale measure or the optimisation of utility functions as well as risk measures from the perspective of a single trader.We propose a new and effective derivative pricing method, referred to as the equal risk pricing approach, for markets with convex trading constraints. The approach analyses the risk exposure of both the buyer and seller of the derivative, and seeks an equal risk price which evenly distributes the expected loss for both parties under optimal hedging. The existence and uniqueness of the equal risk price are established for both European and American options. Furthermore, if the trading constraints are removed, the equal risk price agrees with the standard arbitrage-free price.Finally, the equal risk pricing approach is applied to a constrained Black–Scholes market model where short-selling is banned. In particular, simple pricing formulas are derived for European calls, European puts and American puts.

Equal Risk Pricing Under Convex Trading Constraints

In an incomplete market model where convex trading constraints are imposed upon the underlying assets, it is no longer possible to obtain unique arbitrage-free prices for derivatives using standard replication arguments. Most existing derivative pricing approaches involve the selection of a suitable martingale measure or the optimisation of utility functions as well as risk measures from the perspective of a single trader.We propose a new and effective derivative pricing method, referred to as the equal risk pricing approach, for markets with convex trading constraints. The approach analyses the risk exposure of both the buyer and seller of the derivative, and seeks an equal risk price which evenly distributes the expected loss for both parties under optimal hedging. The existence and uniqueness of the equal risk price are established for both European and American options. Furthermore, if the trading constraints are removed, the equal risk price agrees with the standard arbitrage-free price.Finally, the equal risk pricing approach is applied to a constrained Black-Scholes market model where short-selling is banned. In particular, simple pricing formulas are derived for European calls, European puts and American puts.

Non-transferable non-hedgeable executive stock option pricing

To value non-transferable non-hedgeable (NTNH) contingent claims and price executive stock options (ESOs), we use a replication argument to translate portfolios with NTNH derivatives into portfolios of primary assets (only) with stochastic portfolio constraints. By identifying stochastic discount factors and finding subjective prices of NTNH European and American ESOs, for block and continuous partial exercise, we derive executives׳ optimal exercise policies, and use these to find objective prices/costs of ESOs to firms. Through numerical simulations, we obtain policy implications regarding ESOs׳ incentivizing efficiency. For the first time, we demonstrate that, unlike under block exercise, subjective prices under continuous partial exercise may be higher than objective ones. Moreover, volatility regimes and executives׳ “other wealth” are important in ESO pricing, and are thus essential to empirical executive compensation studies.

Non-Transferable Non-Hedgeable Executive Stock Options Pricing

To value non-transferable non-hedgeable (NTNH) contingent claims and price executive stock options (ESOs), we use a replication argument to translate portfolios with NTNH derivatives into portfolios of primary assets (only) with stochastic portfolio constraints. By identifying stochastic discount factors and finding subjective prices of NTNH European and American ESOs, for block and continuous partial exercise, we derive executives’ optimal exercise policies, and use these to find objective prices/costs of ESOs to firms. Through numerical simulations, we obtain policy implications regarding ESOs’ incentivizing efficiency. For the first time, we demonstrate that, unlike under block exercise, subjective prices under continuous partial exercise may be higher than objective ones. Moreover, volatility regimes and executives’ “other wealth” are important in ESO pricing, and are thus essential to empirical executive compensation studies.

A note on utility based pricing and asymptotic risk diversification

In principle, liabilities combining both insurancial risks (e.g. mortality/longevity, crop yield,...) and pure financial risks cannot be priced neither by applying the usual actuarial principles of diversification, nor by arbitrage-free replication arguments. Still, it has been often proposed in the literature to combine these two approaches by suggesting to hedge a pure financial payoff computed by taking the mean under the historical/objective probability measure on the part of the risk that can be diversified. Not surprisingly, simple examples show that this approach is typically inconsistent for risk adverse agents. We show that it can nevertheless be recovered asymptotically if we consider a sequence of agents whose absolute risk aversions go to zero and if the number of sold claims goes to infinity simultaneously. This follows from a general convergence result on utility indifference prices which is valid for both complete and incomplete financial markets. In particular, if the underlying financial market is complete, the limit price corresponds to the hedging cost of the mean payoff. If the financial market is incomplete but the agents behave asymptotically as exponential utility maximizers with vanishing risk aversion, we show that the utility indifference price converges to the expectation of the discounted payoff under the minimal entropy martingale measure.

A Closer Look at Barrier Exchange Options

A barrier exchange option is an exchange option that is knocked out the first time the prices of two underlying assets become equal. Lindset, S., & Persson, S.‐A. (2006) present a simple dynamic replication argument to show that, in the absence of arbitrage, the current value of the barrier exchange option is equal to the difference in the current prices of the underlying assets and that this pricing formula applies irrespective of whether the option is European or American. In this study, we take a closer look at barrier exchange options and show, despite the simplicity of the pricing formula presented by Lindset, S., & Persson, S.‐A. (2006), that the barrier exchange option in fact involves a surprising array of key concepts associated with the pricing of derivative securities including: put–call parity, barrier in–out parity, static vs. dynamic replication, martingale pricing, continuous vs. discontinuous price processes, and numeraires. We provide valuable intuition behind the pricing formula which explains its apparent simplicity. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 33:29–43, 2013

The pricing of dividend futures in the European market: A first empirical analysis

This article is the first to study empirically the pricing of the Euro Stoxx 50 dividend futures, introduced at the European Exchange (Eurex) in mid-2008. These instruments are an easy means of obtaining exposure to the future dividends of the index constituents for hedging and speculation purposes. Trading figures thus far show a viable interest of market participants in this innovation. Based on straightforward and model-free replication arguments, this study compares prices of the dividend futures to those of hedging portfolios built on exchange-traded index options. The analysis shows substantial pricing imbalances, and hence violations of arbitrage relations between both derivatives markets for a set of contract maturities. This phenomenon cannot be fully explained by transactions costs and other potential trading constraints.

Fair (intra-bank transfer) prices for credits with stochastic recovery

In a discrete time stationary setting we derive explicit formulas for the value of a coupon paying defaultable credit contract with stochastic recovery. The pricing method is based on a perfect replication argument using simple 1-period insurance contracts.

A Note on Credit Insurance

In a simple stationary setting with constant interest rate, we derive pricing formulas for defaultable bonds with stochastic recovery rate using a replication argument. Replication is done by using an insurance contract (i.e. a kind of credit default swap), the price of which is determined by a dynamic premium calculation principle. We consider two cases, a linear one, where pricing amounts to solving an inhomogeneous linear ODE, and a super-linear case where a Riccati ODE has to be solved.

A Note on Credit Insurance

In a simple stationary setting with constant interest rate, we derive pricing formulas for defaultable bonds with stochastic recovery rate using a replication argument. Replication is done by using an insurance contract (i.e. a kind of credit default swap), the price of which is determined by a dynamic premium calculation principle. We consider two cases, a linear one, where pricing amounts to solving an inhomogeneous linear ODE, and a super-linear case where a Riccati ODE has to be solved.

Real-time decentralized information processing and returns to scale

We use a model of real-time decentralized information processing to understand how constraints on human information processing affect the returns to scale of organizations. We identify three informational (dis)economies of scale: diversification of heterogeneous risks (positive), sharing of information and of costs (positive), and crowding out of recent information due to information processing delay (negative). Because decision rules are endogenous, delay does not inexorably lead to decreasing returns to scale. However, returns are more likely to be decreasing when computation constraints, rather than sampling costs, limit the information upon which decisions are conditioned. The results illustrate how information processing constraints together with the requirement of informational integration cause a breakdown of the replication arguments that have been used to establish nondecreasing technological returns to scale.

Products of trees for investment analysis

Binomial lattices are commonly used to represent the random return process of a single risky asset. When several different securities are considered simultaneously, it is more difficult to construct a multinomial tree that appropriately represents the joint probabilistic evolution of these securities. One way to construct such a representation is to form a product of the trees, constructed from simple trees that individually represent the separate securities. An apparent disadvantage of the product representation is that the number of nodes at each step of the process is then greater than the number of available securities, and hence replication arguments do not apply and risk-neutral probabilities are not uniquely defined. It is shown, however, that under a condition that marginal utility is optimally independent, the risk-neutral probabilities are uniquely defined in the product tree. This condition is satisfied in particular if either (1) the single period utility is exponential, (2) the time between periods is very small, or (3) the optimal portfolio contains a zero level of some securities. This result provides a simple means for representing the prices of several securities in a single tree and for small numbers of securities the method forms a simple and practical method of analysis. Furthermore, the construction is useful for theoretical developments or for pedagogical purposes because continuous-time results can be derived easily without use of multidimensional Ito calculus.

Gauge Theory of Finance?

The recent stimulating proposal of a "Gauge Theory of Finance" by Ilinsky et al. is connected here with traditional approaches. First, the derivation of the log-normal distribution is shown to be equivalent both in information and mathematical content to the simpler and well-known derivation, dating back from Bachelier and Samuelson. Similarly, the re-derivation of Black–Scholes equation is shown equivalent to the standard one because the limit of no uncertainty is equivalent to the standard risk-free replication argument. Both re-derivations of the log-normality and Black–Scholes result do not provide a test of the theory because it is not uniquely specified in the limits where these results apply. Third, the choice of the exponential form a la Boltzmann, of the weight of a given market configuration, is a key postulate that requires justification. In addition, the "Gauge Theory of Finance" seems to lead to "virtual" arbitrage opportunities for a pure Markov random walk market when there should be none. These remarks are offered in the hope to improve the formulation of the "Gauge Theory of Finance" into a coherent and useful framework.

DERIVATIVE ASSET PRICING WITH TRANSACTION COSTS1

In the modern theory of finance, the valuation of derivative assets is commonly based on a replication argument. When there are transaction costs, this argument is no longer valid. In this paper, we try to address the general problem of finding the optimal portfolio among those which dominate a given derivative asset at maturity. We derive an interval for its price. the upper bound is the minimum amount one has to invest initially in order to obtain proceeds at least as valuable as the derivative asset. the lower bound is the maximum amount one can borrow initially against the proceeds of the derivative asset. We show that, in some instances, this interval may be strictly bounded above by the price of the replicating strategy. Prima facie, the cost of a dominating strategy should appear to be higher than that of the replicating one. But because trading is costly, it may pay to weigh the benefits of replication against those of potential savings on transaction costs.