The frontier of quantitative finance, in one feed. The newest peer-review-bound research from arXiv’s q-fin archive — trading and market microstructure, portfolio management, risk, pricing, and machine learning in markets — with titles, authors, and abstracts, linked straight to source. Updated continuously.
Derivatives, options, and asset pricing models.
Andres Medina, Wei Wei
Catastrophe bonds have become a central instrument for transferring catastrophic risk to capital markets, yet their payout structures are typically specified exogenously rather than optimized. In this paper, we treat the indemnity function as the decision variable and study the optimal design of CAT bonds from the sponsor's perspective. W…
Mathias Beiglböck, Manuel Hasenbichler, Gudmund Pammer
European option smiles determine the risk-neutral marginal laws of an asset, but not their intertemporal coupling, which is decisive for many applications. The Bass martingale construction selects, among all calibrated martingales, the one closest to Bachelier dynamics; it permits fast calibration at discrete maturities and recovers the D…
Masaaki Fukasawa
We derive a short-maturity expansion for up-and-out put barrier option prices under continuous stochastic volatility when the strike and the barrier approach the spot at the diffusive scale. Assuming joint weak convergence of the normalized terminal return, the relative volatility fluctuation, and the running maximum, together with unifor…
Frédéric Pauquay
We develop a non-perturbative framework for stochastic-volatility option pricing built on the two-particle-irreducible (2PI) effective action and the Dyson-Schwinger gap equations of quantum field theory. In log-price, log-volatility or Lamperti coordinates, the joint law of the state variables is approximated by a self-consistent Gaussia…
Masaaki Fukasawa, Jun Maeda, Tatsuya Ogiwara
We study the short-maturity implied volatility and the skew stickiness ratio for baskets of assets with continuous, possibly rough, stochastic volatility. The fluctuation of the instantaneous basket variance has two sources: fluctuations of the constituent variances and fluctuations of the basket weights. We derive a near-the-money implie…
John Ery, Erwan Koch
Catastrophe (cat) bonds overcome some lack of reinsurance by sourcing capacity from the wider capital markets. We present a new type of cat bond addressing the known trade-off between moral hazard and basis risk. As our main contributions we propose a trigger mechanism which is entirely transparent and simpler to evaluate compared to inde…
Masaaki Fukasawa
We derive a first-order representation of Black-Scholes implied variance in a continuous local martingale model. Total implied variance is the conditional expectation of the quadratic variation of the log price given its terminal value, up to a smaller-order term, for bounded standardized log-strikes. The framework incorporates small vola…
Johannes Brutsche, Julian Sester, Thorsten Schmidt
We give a two-period counterexample to the absence of arbitrage for the posterior-weighted pricing rule in Estimate nothing by Duembgen and Rogers. Both physical models have strictly positive transition densities, and each model is equipped with an equivalent martingale measure. Nevertheless, the mixed price of a single derivative falls d…
Gijs Custers, Sven Karbach, Martin Friesen
We develop semi-closed pricing formulas and lifted-model hedging methods for discretely monitored geometric and arithmetic Asian options in the Volterra-Heston stochastic volatility model. Exploiting the affine Volterra structure, we derive a tractable transform for the joint law of the terminal log-price and the discretely monitored geom…
Evgeny Lakshtanov
Pathwise differentiation of Monte Carlo estimators fails at payoff discontinuities, producing zero or biased sensitivities for barriers, autocallables, and digital options. The industry workaround --- smoothing the indicator functions --- introduces bias and requires per-product calibration. We derive a correction formula that restores un…
Andrea Molent, Marcellino Gaudenzi
We propose a deterministic numerical method for pricing and hedging surrenderable equity-linked life-insurance contracts with periodic premiums and fund contributions, maturity and death guarantees, and Bermudan surrender under correlated stochastic volatility and stochastic interest rates. The main computational challenge is the non-reco…
Andrey Itkin, Rakhymzhan Kazbek
A companion paper \cite{ItkinDF2026} introduced the Diagonal Frog (DF) positivity-preserving schemes for anisotropic Fokker--Planck equations, advancing each directional substep by a Krylov-computed matrix exponential, which dominates the cost. Replacing that exponential by a rational map $r(γL)$ reduces the substep to a banded solve, but…
Useong Shin
Option-implied rates are often treated as frictionless because completed boxes deliver riskless payoffs. I show that this interpretation requires option- and benchmark-side implementation wedges to offset. Using SPX and RUT options from 2012-2025, I find a 2-3 bp unannualized increase in the option funding basis when maturity first crosse…
Dongdong Hu, Hasanjan Sayit, Steve Tchoneteck, Frederi Viens
Basket options are difficult to value under correlated lognormal dynamics because weighted sums and differences of lognormal variables have no tractable distribution. This paper develops a probability-based four-moment framework that separates the exact pricing representation from the distributional approximation. A change of measure firs…
Andrey Itkin
The Marketron model of \cite{HalperinItkin2025Mark} and its option pricing extension in \cite{HalperinItkinMarketron2} suffer from structural non-identifiability: an eighteen-parameter space traps solvers in suboptimal local minima and renders economic quantities unmeasurable. By removing exact scaling gauges and sign symmetries, freezing…
Lucas Carvalho
Hedge ratios, factor models and diversified portfolios all rest on an estimate of which firms move together. That estimate is not stable: firms migrate between the groupings the market treats as coherent, and when enough migrate the organizing axes of the cross-section turn. We measure the rate of that turning as the mean squared sine of …
Peter Carr, Stephan Sturm
We consider the question of the optimal timing of the sale of an asset with stochastic dynamics. Our analysis is based on the method of the distribution builder introduced by Sharpe, Goldstein and Blythe [SGB00] for the purpose of optimal portfolio selection. Instead of specifying a utility function or risk aversion coefficient, this tool…
Lucas Arenstein, Michael Kastoryano
This paper considers European multi-asset option pricing under Lévy and affine characteristic-function models. The main obstruction is the curse of dimensionality: direct multidimensional COS pricing forms tensor-product coefficient arrays whose size grows exponentially with the number of assets. We study and extend COS-TT-CHF, a low-rank…
Li Chen, Liang Wang, Weixuan Xia
We propose a novel valuation framework for contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds based on the issuing bank's Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio, which is widely acknowledged as an indicator of a bank's solvency. Our approach develops a bivariate jump-diffusion model that captures the dynamic relationship linking the CET1 ratios, share prices…
Jerome Detemple, Yerkin Kitapbayev, Danila Shabalin
Using the local time-space calculus of Peskir (2005) and the method developed in Mijatovic (2010), we derive a new integral representation for the distribution of the first-passage time (FPT) of a diffusion process through a time-dependent barrier. We present a complete three-step numerical algorithm: first, the problem is reduced to a Vo…
Teemu Pennanen, Waleed Taoum
Thousands of SOFR derivatives are available in exchanges and OTC, but the market remains illiquid and incomplete. Such a market is beyond the scope of classic risk-neutral approaches that imply linear pricing rules and, at best, approximate hedging strategies whose hedging error may be difficult to quantify. This paper develops an indiffe…
Sidharth Mallik, Anastasios Megaritis, Waymond Rodgers
The impact of web datasets on market prices has suggested the development of new sources of information, such as social media and web portals, indicating the possibility of an emergent phenomenon. We propose a defining perspective, termed open information, that adds to the existing types of public and private information. We demonstrate t…
Daojing Zhai
Informed traders are supposed to need anonymity: they profit by hiding among the uninformed. A decentralized exchange now publishes the counterparty. Every committed order, cancellation, rejection, and fill carries a persistent pseudonymous wallet address. We reconstruct the full-depth limit order book from a record of 17.1 billion messag…
Robert Jarrow, Jayen Tan
Fractional Brownian motion (fBm) exhibits attractive features for financial modeling, including long-range dependence, path roughness, and anomalous diffusion. However, its non-semimartingale nature precludes the use of conventional no-arbitrage approaches to option pricing. We address this limitation by introducing a time-changed fBm, ob…
Nicola F. Zaugg, Lech A. Grzelak
We propose the VIX-derived volatility (VDV) model, a VIX-first framework for joint SPXVIX modeling. In the model, we define explicit dynamics for the VIX process to price VIX futures and options, yielding a VIX-side calibration that is independent of the SPX dynamics. Using the rolling-window definition of the VIX, we then derive a coupli…
Wanling Rudkin
Competing ESG rating providers reward different portfolio attributes. This paper models funds that choose portfolios and fees for investors with heterogeneous ESG priorities. Portfolio changes can improve both providers' scores or favour one methodology over the other, and investor demand determines which methodology each fund targets. Gr…
Andrey Itkin
Borrowed from non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, the generalized Langevin equation (GLE) is imported as a framework for stochastic volatility to address the structural limitations of fractional Brownian motion (fBm), the standard engine of rough volatility. The fBm forces a single parameter to set two logically independent properties …
Lennon J. Shikhman, Michael Galarnyk, Aadi Dash, Nicholas A. Welsh
Accurate option prices do not imply accurate recovery of the latent risk-neutral density. We study this distinction with two complementary benchmarks. A controlled benchmark exposes simulator-truth densities for latent evaluation, while a chronological NIFTY benchmark tests only held-out market prices. A two-component lognormal mixture ha…
Zhipeng Huang, Cornelis W. Oosterlee
We develop an analytic Fourier cosine (COS) method for the valuation of compound options. By deriving closed-form expressions for the cosine coefficients at all compound stages, the proposed method eliminates the need for numerical quadrature in intermediate exercise stages while retaining the convergence properties of the underlying COS …
Takayuki Sakuma
Hedging a derivative position under transaction costs and market frictions requires a trading rule that adapts to changing conditions. Deep hedging trains a neural policy for this task but policy training does not determine whether a trading desk can afford to run the policy. We apply robust hedging valuation adjustment (HVA) as a post-tr…
Alexander S. Ushakov, Yury N. Berdinsky
We apply the Henstock--Kurzweil (HK) gauge integral to the Black--Scholes model of option pricing and obtain the European call price directly from a Gaussian cylindrical kernel, without stochastic calculus. Under the risk- neutral measure, the log-price is a Brownian motion with drift nu = r - sigma^2/2. Its transition density is the Gaus…
Félix B. Tambe-Ndonfack
We develop a structural credit-risk model under incomplete information in which investors observe firm value only indirectly through noisy market signals and scheduled corporate disclosures. While disclosure dates are known in advance, their informational content is random, leading to stochastic discontinuities in the observation process.…
Junchi Shen
Do quantum kernels improve cross-sectional stock return prediction? We run a controlled horse race on the Chinese A-share market in which a quantum fidelity kernel, a projected quantum kernel, and a classical RBF control share identical training subsamples, solver, and tuning budgets, so that only the kernel is exchanged. On the main eval…
Federico Aluigi, Lucia Caramellino, Paolo Pigato, Edoardo Scrima
The Gasoil options market is illiquid, making it difficult to construct its implied volatility surface directly. However, it is closely linked to the highly liquid Brent options market. In this paper, we jointly model Brent and Gasoil futures prices through a correlated Bachelier local volatility model: the Brent factor is described by a …
Masashi Sekine
We study equilibrium price formation in an incomplete financial market with a large population of agents, where stock prices are subject to a single-default event. Agents are assumed to be heterogeneous in their risk aversion and terminal liabilities, and maximize exponential utility of terminal net wealth. We first characterize each agen…
Federico M. Bandi, Yinan Su
Compute (computing power) is a scarce, capital-intensive input at the center of the AI economy. Compute capital expenditure and service flow already exceed 1% of U.S. GDP and are growing rapidly. The price of compute reflects uncertainty over AI adoption. The announced launch of compute futures turns this uncertainty into a tradable risk,…
Mohammad Abedi
Standard models of stock price dynamics and option valuation usually begin by postulating stochastic processes. This paper develops an entropic inference framework that derives these processes from information constraints. The key symmetry is that markets reward returns rather than price levels, which selects log price as the dynamical va…
Useong Shin
I propose a cap-axis zero-alpha diagnostic for factor-model evaluation. Whole-stock capitalization prefixes are paired with equal realized exposure to the aggregate market, producing a bridge-alpha curve that localizes pricing errors within the market. Finite-grid HAC-Gaussian inference and residual-block calibration provide size-controll…
Chris Angstmann, Tim Gebbie
We derive an operational-time variance kernel for a latent-order-book reaction boundary and use it to separate three objects usually collapsed in calendar-time volatility models: a structural boundary cumulant, a clock projection, and a pricing-measure choice. The reaction boundary is the zero of a bid--ask imbalance field. For a locally …
Nicola Bartolini, Silvia Romagnoli, Amia Santini
Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are bilateral over-the-counter contracts central to renewable energy financing. While their capacity to stabilise revenues and hedge price risk is well recognised, their OTC structure exposes both parties to counterparty credit risk. This is a dimension yet to be explored in the literature, particularly gi…
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