A modified explicit finite difference approach to the pricing of barrier options is developed. To obtain accurate prices, the grid is constructed such that the barrier is located in a suitable position relative to horizontal layers of nodes on the grid. This means that the barrier passes through...

The Black-Derman-Toy (BDT) model is a popular one-factor interest rate model that is widely used by practitioners. One of its advantages is that the model can be calibrated to both the current market term structure of interest rate and the current term structure of volatilities. The input term...

We study the fair strike of a discrete variance swap for a general time-homogeneous stochastic volatility model. In the special cases of Heston, Hull--White and Schöbel--Zhu stochastic volatility models, we give simple explicit expressions (improving Broadie and Jain (2008a). The effect of...

Cox and Leland used techniques from the field of stochastic control theory to show that, in the particular case of a Brownian motion for the asset log-returns, risk-averse decision makers with a fixed investment horizon prefer path-independent pay-offs over path-dependent pay-offs. In this note...