We study the static maximization of long-term averaged profit, when optimal preset thresholds are determined to describe a pairs trading strategy in a general one-dimensional ergodic diffusion model of a stochastic spread process. An explicit formula for the expected value of a certain first passage time is given, which is used to derive a simple equation for determining the optimal thresholds. Asymptotic arbitrage in the long run of the threshold strategy is observed.

We investigate the European call option pricing problem under the fractional stochastic volatility model. The stochastic volatility model is driven by both fractional Brownian motion and standard Brownian motion. We obtain an analytical solution of the European option price via the Itô’s formula for fractional Brownian motion, Malliavin calculus, derivative replication and the fundamental solution method. Some numerical simulations are given to illustrate the impact of parameters on option prices, and the results of comparison with other models are presented.

We derive an analytical approximation for the price of a credit default swap (CDS) contract under a regime-switching Black–Scholes model. To achieve this, we first derive a general formula for the CDS price, and establish the relationship between the unknown no-default probability and the price of a down-and-out binary option written on the same reference asset. Then we present a two-step procedure: the first step assumes that all the future information of the Markov chain is known at the current time and presents an approximation for the conditional price under a time-dependent Black–Scholes model, based on which the second step derives the target option pricing formula written in a Fourier cosine series. The efficiency and accuracy of the newly derived formula are demonstrated through numerical experiments.

We study finite maturity American-style stock loans under a two-state regime-switching economy. We present a thorough semi-analytic discussion of the optimal redeeming prices, the values and the fair service fees of the stock loans, under the assumption that the volatility of the underlying is in a state of uncertainty. Numerical experiments are carried out to show the effects of the volatility regimes and other loan parameters.

We present an analytical option pricing formula for the European options, in which the price dynamics of a risky asset follows a mean-reverting process with a time-dependent parameter. The process can be adapted to describe a seasonal variation in price such as in agricultural commodity markets. An analytical solution is derived based on the solution of a partial differential equation, which shows that a European option price can be decomposed into two terms: the payoff of the option at the initial time and the time-integral over the lifetime of the option driven by a time-dependent parameter. Finally, results obtained from the formula have been compared with Monte Carlo simulations and a Black–Scholes-type formula under various kinds of long-run mean functions, and some examples of option price behaviours have been provided.

Closed-form explicit formulas for implied Black–Scholes volatilities provide a rapid evaluation method for European options under the popular stochastic alpha–beta–rho (SABR) model. However, it is well known that computed prices using the implied volatilities are only accurate for short-term maturities, but, for longer maturities, a more accurate method is required. This work addresses this accuracy problem for long-term maturities by numerically solving the no-arbitrage partial differential equation with an absorbing boundary condition at zero. Localized radial basis functions in a finite-difference mode are employed for the development of a computational method for solving the resulting two-dimensional pricing equation. The proposed method can use either multiquadrics or inverse multiquadrics, which are shown to have comparable performances. Numerical results illustrate the accuracy of the proposed method and, more importantly, that the computed risk-neutral probability densities are nonnegative. These two key properties indicate that the method of solution using localized meshless methods is a viable and efficient means for price computations under SABR dynamics.

We propose a Legendre–Laguerre spectral approximation to price the European and double barrier options in the time-fractional framework. By choosing an appropriate basis function, the spectral discretization is used for the approximation of the spatial derivatives of the time-fractional Black–Scholes equation. For the time discretization, we consider the popular $L1$ finite difference approximation, which converges with order $\mathcal {O}((\Delta \tau )^{2-\alpha })$ for functions which are twice continuously differentiable. However, when using the $L1$ scheme for problems with nonsmooth initial data, only the first-order accuracy in time is achieved. This low-order accuracy is also observed when solving the time-fractional Black–Scholes European and barrier option pricing problems for which the payoffs are all nonsmooth. To increase the temporal convergence rate, we therefore consider a Richardson extrapolation method, which when combined with the spectral approximation in space, exhibits higher order convergence such that high accuracies over the whole discretization grid are obtained. Compared with the traditional finite difference scheme, numerical examples clearly indicate that the spectral approximation converges exponentially over a small number of grid points. Also, as demonstrated, such high accuracies can be achieved in much fewer time steps using the extrapolation approach.

We study the pricing of timer options in a class of stochastic volatility models, where the volatility is driven by two diffusions—one fast mean-reverting and the other slowly varying. Employing singular and regular perturbation techniques, full second-order asymptotics of the option price are established. In addition, we investigate an implied volatility in terms of effective maturity for the timer options, and derive its second-order expansion based on our pricing asymptotics. A numerical experiment shows that the price approximation formula has a high level of accuracy, and the implied volatility in terms of its effective maturity is illustrated.