Volatility Surface And Term Structure

This book provides different financial models based on options to predict underlying asset price and design the risk hedging strategies. Authors of the book have made theoretical innovation to these models to enable the models to be applicable to real market. The book also introduces risk management and hedging strategies based on different criterions. These strategies provide practical guide for real option trading. This book studies the classical stochastic volatility and deterministic volatility models. For the former, the classical Heston model is integrated with volatility term structure. The correlation of Heston model is considered to be variable. For the latter, the local volatility model is improved from experience of financial practice. The improved local volatility surface is then used for price forecasting. VaR and CVaR are employed as standard criterions for risk management. The options trading strategies are also designed combining different types of options and they have been proven to be profitable in real market. This book is a combination of theory and practice. Users will find the applications of these financial models in real market to be effective and efficient.

Trading and Pricing Financial Derivatives is an introduction to the world of futures, options, and swaps. Investors who are interested in deepening their knowledge of derivatives of all kinds will find this book to be an invaluable resource. The book is also useful in a very applied course on derivative trading. The authors delve into the history of options pricing; simple strategies of options trading; binomial tree valuation; Black-Scholes option valuation; option sensitivities; risk management and interest rate swaps in this immensely informative yet easy to comprehend work. Using their vast working experience in the financial markets at international investment banks and hedge funds since the late 1990s and teaching derivatives and investment courses at the Master's level, Patrick Boyle and Jesse McDougall put forth their knowledge and expertise in clearly explained concepts. This book does not presuppose advanced mathematical knowledge, though it is presented for completeness for those that may benefit from it, and is designed for a general audience, suitable for beginners through to those with intermediate knowledge of the subject.

This publication aims to fill the void between books providing an introduction to derivatives, and advanced books whose target audience are members of quantitative modelling community. In order to appeal to the widest audience, this publication tries to assume the least amount of prior knowledge. The content quickly moves onto more advanced subjects in order to concentrate on more practical and advanced topics. "A master piece to learn in a nutshell all the essentials about volatility with a practical and lively approach. A must read!" Carole Bernard, Equity Derivatives Specialist at Bloomberg "This book could be seen as the 'volatility bible'!" Markus-Alexander Flesch, Head of Sales & Marketing at Eurex "I highly recommend this book both for those new to the equity derivatives business, and for more advanced readers. The balance between theory and practice is struck At-The-Money" Paul Stephens, Head of Institutional Marketing at CBOE "One of the best resources out there for the volatility community" Paul Britton, CEO and Founder of Capstone Investment Advisors "Colin has managed to convey often complex derivative and volatility concepts with an admirable simplicity, a welcome change from the all-too-dense tomes one usually finds on the subject" Edmund Shing PhD, former Proprietary Trader at BNP Paribas "In a crowded space, Colin has supplied a useful and concise guide" Gary Delany, Director Europe at the Options Industry Council

The Volatility Smile The Black-Scholes-Merton option model was the greatest innovation of 20th century finance, and remains the most widely applied theory in all of finance. Despite this success, the model is fundamentally at odds with the observed behavior of option markets: a graph of implied volatilities against strike will typically display a curve or skew, which practitioners refer to as the smile, and which the model cannot explain. Option valuation is not a solved problem, and the past forty years have witnessed an abundance of new models that try to reconcile theory with markets. The Volatility Smile presents a unified treatment of the Black-Scholes-Merton model and the more advanced models that have replaced it. It is also a book about the principles of financial valuation and how to apply them. Celebrated author and quant Emanuel Derman and Michael B. Miller explain not just the mathematics but the ideas behind the models. By examining the foundations, the implementation, and the pros and cons of various models, and by carefully exploring their derivations and their assumptions, readers will learn not only how to handle the volatility smile but how to evaluate and build their own financial models. Topics covered include: The principles of valuation Static and dynamic replication The Black-Scholes-Merton model Hedging strategies Transaction costs The behavior of the volatility smile Implied distributions Local volatility models Stochastic volatility models Jump-diffusion models The first half of the book, Chapters 1 through 13, can serve as a standalone textbook for a course on option valuation and the Black-Scholes-Merton model, presenting the principles of financial modeling, several derivations of the model, and a detailed discussion of how it is used in practice. The second half focuses on the behavior of the volatility smile, and, in conjunction with the first half, can be used for as the basis for a more advanced course.

The prices of index options at a given date are usually represented via the corresponding implied volatility surface, presenting skew/smile features and term structure which several models have attempted to reproduce. However the implied volatility surface also changes dynamically over time in a way that is not taken into account by current modeling approaches, giving rise to quot;Vegaquot; risk in option portfolios. Using time series of option prices on the SP500 and FTSE indices, we study the deformation of this surface and show that it may be represented as a randomly fluctuating surface driven by a small number of orthogonal random factors. We identify and interpret the shape of each of these factors, study their dynamics and their correlation with the underlying index. Our approach is based on a Karhunen-Loeve decomposition of the daily variations of implied volatilities obtained from market data. A simple factor model compatible with the empirical observations is proposed. We illustrate how this approach model and improves the the well-known quot;sticky moneynessquot; rule used by option traders for updating implied volatilities. Our approach gives a justification for use of quot;Vegasquot; for measuring volatility risk and provides a decomposition of volatility risk as a sum of contributions from empirically identifiable factors.

Praise for The Volatility Surface "I'm thrilled by the appearance of Jim Gatheral's new book The Volatility Surface. The literature on stochastic volatility is vast, but difficult to penetrate and use. Gatheral's book, by contrast, is accessible and practical. It successfully charts a middle ground between specific examples and general models--achieving remarkable clarity without giving up sophistication, depth, or breadth." --Robert V. Kohn, Professor of Mathematics and Chair, Mathematical Finance Committee, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University "Concise yet comprehensive, equally attentive to both theory and phenomena, this book provides an unsurpassed account of the peculiarities of the implied volatility surface, its consequences for pricing and hedging, and the theories that struggle to explain it." --Emanuel Derman, author of My Life as a Quant "Jim Gatheral is the wiliest practitioner in the business. This very fine book is an outgrowth of the lecture notes prepared for one of the most popular classes at NYU's esteemed Courant Institute. The topics covered are at the forefront of research in mathematical finance and the author's treatment of them is simply the best available in this form." --Peter Carr, PhD, head of Quantitative Financial Research, Bloomberg LP Director of the Masters Program in Mathematical Finance, New York University "Jim Gatheral is an acknowledged master of advanced modeling for derivatives. In The Volatility Surface he reveals the secrets of dealing with the most important but most elusive of financial quantities, volatility." --Paul Wilmott, author and mathematician "As a teacher in the field of mathematical finance, I welcome Jim Gatheral's book as a significant development. Written by a Wall Street practitioner with extensive market and teaching experience, The Volatility Surface gives students access to a level of knowledge on derivatives which was not previously available. I strongly recommend it." --Marco Avellaneda, Director, Division of Mathematical Finance Courant Institute, New York University "Jim Gatheral could not have written a better book." --Bruno Dupire, winner of the 2006 Wilmott Cutting Edge Research Award Quantitative Research, Bloomberg LP

Applied probability is a broad research area that is of interest to scientists in diverse disciplines in science and technology, including: anthropology, biology, communication theory, economics, epidemiology, finance, geography, linguistics, medicine, meteorology, operations research, psychology, quality control, sociology, and statistics. Recent Advances in Applied Probability is a collection of survey articles that bring together the work of leading researchers in applied probability to present current research advances in this important area. This volume will be of interest to graduate students and researchers whose research is closely connected to probability modelling and their applications. It is suitable for one semester graduate level research seminar in applied probability.