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Post/Doctoral seminar in Mathematical Finance

taking place this semester on Wednesdays, 15:15 - 16:45, in HG G 19.1

FS 12


HS 11


16/12/2011
Sebastian Herrmann
  On the martingale property of stochastic integrals
  We construct a uniformly integrable continuous martingale X and a bounded predictable process H such that the stochastic integral H·X is not a uniformly integrable martingale. Applying a deterministic change of time, we obtain a continuous martingale X' and a bounded integrand H'
such that the stochastic integral H'·X' is a strict local martingale.

09/12/2011 Martin Schweizer
  A continuous-time DMW result, with an infinite-dimensional proof
  One aspect of the classical Dalang-Morton-Willinger result is that for a stochastic process in finite discrete time, the existence of an equivalent martingale measure automatically implies the existence of an equivalent martingale measure with bounded density. We prove a continuous-time variant of this result. The proof is also of interest since it involves a nontrivial use of a separation theorem in an infinite-dimensional space.

02/12/2011 No seminar

25/11/2011 Philipp Dörsek
begin 15:30
Splitting method for stochastic (partial) differential equations
  We give an overview of the semigroup perspective on splitting schemes for S(P)DEs. We explain the basic methodology using the method of stochastic characteristics. The Feller and generalised Feller properties are introduced and analysed. Applications to S(P)DEs are given.

18/11/2011 Anja Richter

Explicit solutions to quadratic BSDEs and applications to utility maximization
  We want to give explicit solutions to a class of quadratic growth Backward Stochastic Differential Equations (BSDEs). Due to its analytical tractability we consider a setting involving affine processes on the cone of positive semidefinite matrices. It is then shown that the solution of a class of BSDEs can be reduced to solving a system of generalized Riccati ordinary differential equations for which we give existence and uniqueness results.
We apply our results to the problem of maximizing expected utility of terminal wealth in multivariate affine stochastic volatility models.

11/11/2011 No seminar
04/11/2011 No seminar
28/10/2011
No seminar

21/10/2011 Winslow Strong
  Arbitrage in Market Models Possessing a Stochastic Number of Assets
  I will discuss financial market models in which the number of assets is a finite but unbounded stochastic process. The focus will be on the possibility of various forms of arbitrage in these models. The framework permits modeling of equity markets where companies may enter, leave, merge, and split. The asset price process is taken to be a piecewise semimartingale of stochastic dimension, which I will define. Stochastic integration with respect to piecewise semimartingales is extended from the usual case by use of localization and partitioning. The “No free lunch with vanishing risk” equivalence to the existence of an equivalent sigma-martingale measure for the class of nonnegative wealth processes, and the “No arbitrage of the first kind” equivalence to the existence of an equivalent local martingale deflator for the price process are extended to this setting. In the case where the price process is a piecewise Itô process, functionally generated relative arbitrage of stochastic portfolio theory is found to be less readily available than in Itô process models.

14/10/2011 Roman Muraviev
  Natural selection with habits and learning in heterogeneous economies
  We study natural selection in complete financial markets, populated by heterogeneous agents. We allow for a rich structure of heterogeneity: Individuals may differ in their beliefs concerning the economy, information and learning mechanism, risk aversion, impatience (time preference rate) and degree of habits. We develop new techniques for studying long run behavior of such economies, based on the Strassen's functional law of iterated logarithm. In particular, we explicitly determine an agent's survival index and show how the latter depends on the agent's characteristics. We use these results to study the long run behavior of the equilibrium interest rate and the market price of risk.

07/10/2011
No seminar
30/09/2011 No seminar
23/09/2011 No seminar

FS 11


17/05/2011 No seminar

10/05/2011 Main talk: Marcel Nutz
  Weak Dynamic Programming for Generalized State Constraints
  We provide a dynamic programming principle for stochastic optimal control problems with expectation constraints.
A weak formulation, using test functions and a probabilistic relaxation of the constraint, avoids restrictions related to a measurable selection but still implies the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation in the viscosity sense. Moreover, we show how to treat state constraints as a special case of expectation constraints.
(Joint work with Bruno Bouchard, Paris)
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 15:15 - 17:00

03/05/2011 No seminar

19/04/2011 No seminar

12/04/2011 Main talk: Santiago Moreno (UZH)
  Pollution Permits, Strategic Trading and Dynamic Technology Adoption
  In this talk I will present a model of a cap-and-trade system as observed in the European market for C02 allowances. I will analyze, from the point of view of a regulator, the design of dynamic incentives for technology adoption under a transferable permits system, which allows for strategic trading on the permit market. Initially, firms can invest both in low-emitting production technologies and trade permits. In the model, technology adoption and allowance price are generated endogenously and are inter-dependent. I will show that the non-cooperative permit trading game possesses a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, where the allowance value reflects the level of uncovered pollution (demand), the level of unused allowances (supply), and the technological status. Further I will introduce a price support instrument (EC4P), which contingent on the adoption of the new technology, allows firms to sell permits back to the regulator. Numerical investigation confirms that the policy with EC4Ps generates a floating price floor for the allowances, and it restores the dynamic incentives to invest. Given that this policy comes at a cost, I will propose and implement a criterion for the selection of a self-financing policy (based on convex risk measures).

(Work in collaboration with Luca Taschini.)

  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 15:15 - 17:00

05/04/2011 Main talk: Johannes Muhle-Karbe
  Transaction costs made tractable
  In a market with one safe and one risky asset, an investor with a long horizon and constant relative risk aversion trades with constant investment opportunities and proportional transaction costs. We derive the optimal investment policy, its welfare, and the resulting trading volume, as explicit functions of market and preference parameters, and of the implied liquidity gap, identified as the solution of a scalar equation. For small transaction costs, all these quantities admit asymptotic expansions of arbitrary order.

The results exploit the equivalence of the transaction cost market to another frictionless market, with a shadow risky asset, in which investment opportunities are stochastic. The shadow price also has an explicit expression.

(Joint work with with Stefan Gerhold, Paolo Guasoni and Walter Schachermayer)

  Appetiser talk: Santiago Moreno (UZH)
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 15:15 - 17:00

29/03/2011 No seminar

22/03/2011 Main talk: Martin Herdegen
Numéraire independent characterisation of no-arbitrage markets
  We introduce a numéraire independent modelling framework for semimartingale markets and define arbitrage therein via a robust notion of superreplication prices. Moreover, we study the question how to define "good" investment strategies in such markets. We then link our framework to the classical framework of Mathematical Finance and survey different notions of no-arbitrage including (NA) and (NFLVR). Finally, we prove the existence of "good" investment strategies in no-arbitrage markets in the numéraire independent sense and give a martingale characterisation of such markets.
  Appetiser talk: Johannes Muhle-Karbe
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 15:15 - 17:00

15/03/2011 No seminar

08/03/2011 Main talk: Yan Dolinsky
  Hedging of game options in the presence of transaction costs (Part II)
  We study the problem of superreplication for game options under proportional transaction costs. We consider a multidimensional model which is an extension of the usual Black-Scholes (BS) model, in a sense that the volatility is a progressively measurable function of the stock. For this case we show that the superreplication price is the cheapest cost of a trivial superreplication strategy. These results are extensions of previous papers in which only European options with Markovian structure were considered.
  Appetiser talk: Martin Herdegen
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 15:15 - 17:00

01/03/2011 Main talk: Yan Dolinsky
  Hedging of game options in the presence of transaction costs (Part I)
  We study the problem of superreplication for game options under proportional transaction costs. We consider a multidimensional model which is an extension of the usual Black-Scholes (BS) model, in a sense that the volatility is a progressively measurable function of the stock. For this case we show that the superreplication price is the cheapest cost of a trivial superreplication strategy. These results are extensions of previous papers in which only European options with Markovian structure were considered.
  Appetiser talk: Martin Schweizer
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 15:15 - 17:00

HS 10


24.9.2010 Gilles-Edouard Espinosa
  Optimal Investment under Relative Performance Concerns I
  ETHZ ML J 34.1, 14:00-16:00
  Since the seminal papers of Merton in the late 60's-early 70's, the problem of optimal investment has been extensively studied in order to generalize in many directions the initial framework. However, in all these works, the investor only takes into account his own wealth (or consumption) in his optimization criterion, whereas in the real world, people tend to compare themselves with their peers. For example, a 5% return during a crisis is not at all the same as a 5% return during a financial bubble. Our aim is to derive an optimal investment theory with such relative concerns.

08.10.2010 Gilles-Edouard Espinosa
  Optimal Investment under Relative Performance Concerns II
  ETHZ ML J 34.1, 14:00-16:00
  After recalling the main results from the previous talk we start explaining the details and giving the proofs.

15.10.2010 Gilles-Edouard Espinosa
  Optimal Investment under Relative Performance Concerns III
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00
  We continue explaining the details and giving the proofs of the results in the previous talks.

22.10.2010 Gilles-Edouard Espinosa
  Optimal Investment under Relative Performance Concerns IV
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00
  We continue explaining the details and giving the proofs of the results in the previous talks.

05.11.2010 Keita Owari
  On the Optimal Strategy in Robust Utility Maximization with Unbounded Random Endowment
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00
  We consider the robust utility maximization with random endowment. After recalling a duality result, we discuss the question of the existence of an optimal strategy in a "natural admissible class'' which is defined to be the set of predictable integrands whose stochastic integrals with respect to the underlying price process are supermartingales under certain "reasonable local martingale measures''. We provide a partial result that the "natural class'' indeed admits an optimizer under three additional assumptions.

12.11.2010 Martin Herdegen
  Numéraire independent properties of general semimartingale markets
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00
  We develop a numéraire independent description of general semimartingale markets and study numéraire independent properties thereof. Primarily, we define arbitrage in a numéraire independent and economically intuitive way via a new notion of superreplication prices. We study this concept of arbitrage in detail, introduce stopping times describing finer features of arbitrage markets and show that any so-called partial arbitrage market can be decomposed into a no-arbitrage market and a so-called full arbitrage market under two measures that are mutually singular and absolutely continuous with respect to the physical measure. Finally, we link our results to the standard model of Delbaen and Schachermayer.


26.11.2010 Martin Herdegen
  Numéraire independent properties of general semimartingale markets (part II)
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00

03.12.2010 Yan Dolinsky
  Limit Theorems for Liquidity in Binomial Markets.
  We study super--replication prices for European options with path dependent payoffs in the Binomial version of the illiquid market model. First we derive a dual representation for the super--replication prices in the Binomial models. Next, we use these duality results to prove limit theorems for the super--replication prices in the constructed Binomial models. In particular, we prove the existence of the liquidity premium for the continuous time limit of the above. This paper extends previous work which was done only for the Markovian case. Our approach is purely probabilistic and allows to deal with path dependent payoffs and path dependent supply curves. (Joint work with Mete Soner)
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00

10.12.2010 Yan Dolinsky
  Limit Theorems for Liquidity in Binomial Markets (part II).
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00

17.12.2010 Christian Reichlin
  Binomial approximation of non-concave utility maximization.
  ETHZ ML F 34, 14:00-16:00

FS 10


2.3.2010 Martin Herdegen
  Markets without a Numeraire
  ETHZ HG G 19.1, 15:15-17:00

9.3.2010 No seminar
 
   

16.3.2010 Marcel Nutz
  Risk Aversion Asymptotics for Power Utility Maximization
  ETHZ HG G 19.1, 15:15-17:00
  We consider optimal consumption and investment with power utility. We study the optimal strategy as the relative risk aversion tends to infinity or to one. The convergence of the optimal consumption is obtained for general semimartingale models while the convergence of the optimal trading strategy is obtained for continuous models. The limits are related to exponential and  logarithmic utility. We use convex duality and BSDEs to derive these results. 

23.3.2010 Idris Kharroubi
  Discrete time approximation of BSDEs with oblique reflections
  ETHZ HG G 19.1, 15:15-17:00

20.4.2010 Yan Dolinsky
  Limit Theorems for Partial Hedging Under Transaction Costs
  ETHZ HG G 19.1, 15:15-17:00
  We study shortfall risk minimization for American options with path dependent payoffs under proportional transaction costs in the Black-Scholes (BS) model. We show that for this case the shortfall risk is a limit of similar terms in an appropriate sequence of binomial models. We also prove that in the continuous time BS model for a given initial capital there exists a portfolio strategy which minimizes the shortfall risk. In the absence of transactions costs (complete markets) similar limit theorems were obtained in Dolinsky and Kifer (2008, 2010) for game options. In the presence of transaction costs the markets are no longer complete and additional machinery is required. Shortfall risk minimization for American options under transaction costs was not studied before.

27.4.2010 Roman Muraviev
  Characterizing The Optimal Consumption and  Investment Policies With Stochastic Habits
  ETHZ HG G 19.1, 15:15-17:00

11.5.2010 Martin Keller-Ressel
  Asymptotics and Exact Pricing of Options on Variance
  ETHZ HG G 19.1, 15:15-17:00
  We consider the pricing of derivatives written on the discrete realized variance of an underlying security. In the literature, the realized variance is usually approximated by its continuous-time limit, the quadratic variation of the underlying log-price. Here, we characterize the short-time limits of call options on both objects. We find that the difference strongly depends on whether or not the stock price process has jumps. To study the exact valuation of options on the discrete realized variance itself, we then propose a novel approach that allows to apply Fourier-Laplace techniques to price European-style options efficiently. To illustrate our results, we also present some numerical examples. (Joint work with Johannes Muhle-Karbe)

18.5.2010 Matteo Casserini
  A functional differential equation approach to the numerical simulation of BSDEs
  ETHZ HG G 19.1, 15:15-17:00
  Backward stochastic dynamics have been introduced by Liang, Lyons and Qian in order to provide a generalization of BSDEs for non-Brownian filtrations by the use of a Doob-Meyer decomposition argument. In particular, this approach allows a representation of the solution of the classical BSDEs introduced by Pardoux and Peng in terms of the solution of a functional differential equation (which completely describes the finite variation part arising in the Doob-Meyer decomposition for the first component of the solution of the BSDE).
In this work, this functional differential equation approach is applied in order to numerically simulate solutions of BSDEs with Lipschitz driver. (Joint work with Gechun Liang)

25.5.2010 Christian Reichlin
  Risk-seeking behaviour in complete markets: existence, anti-comonotonicity and consequences for financial market equilibria
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 15:15-17:00

HS 09


15.10.2009 Marcel Nutz
  Bellman Equation for Power Utility
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 13:15-15:00
  Optimal consumption and investment with power utility: Derivation of the Bellman Equation in semimartingale setting under closed constraints. Uniqueness/verification results. Solution of the exponential Lévy case for convex constraints.

Keywords: dynamic programming -  semimartingale characteristics - measurable selection -  BSDE.


22.10.2009 Martin Schweizer
  Horizon Dependence in Optimal Portfolio Choice I
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 13:15-15:00

29.10.2009 Martin Schweizer
  Horizon Dependence in Optimal Portfolio Choice II
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 13:15-15:00

05.11.2009 Christoph Czichowsky
  Dynamic Mean-Variance Portfolio Selection
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 13:15-15:00

19.11.2009 Roman Muraviev
  Consumption, Concavity and Habit Formation
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 13:15-15:00

10.12.2009 Selim Gökay
  Cetin-Jarrow-Protter model of liquidity in a binomial market
  ETHZ HG G 19.2, 13:15-15:00
 

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