Monte Carlo simulation or probability simulation is a technique used to understand the impact of risk and uncertainty in financial and other forecasting models. It is very useful when complex financial instruments need to be priced. Exotic options are listed on the JSE on its Can-Do platform....

This paper investigates the pricing of single-asset autocallable barrier reverse convertibles in the Heston local-stochastic volatility (LSV) model. Despite their complexity, autocallable structured notes are the most traded equity-linked exotic derivatives. The autocallable payoff embeds an...

In this paper we study the pricing and hedging of options on realized variance in the 3/2 non-affine stochastic volatility model, by developing efficient transform based pricing methods. This non-affine model gives prices of options on realized variance which allow upward sloping implied...

Motivated by the changing nature of the natural gas industry in the European Union driven by the liberalization process, we focus on pricing of gas swing options. These options are embedded in typical gas sales agreements in the form of offtake flexibility concerning volume and time. The gas...

We present a simple and numerically efficient approach to the calibration of the Heston stochastic volatility model with piecewise constant parameters. Extending the original ansatz for the characteristic function, proposed in the seminal paper by Heston, to the case of piecewise constant...

We study the pricing of options on realized variance in a general class of Log-OU stochastic volatility models. The class includes several important models proposed in the literature. Having as common feature the log-normal law of instantaneous variance, the application of standard...

In this study, we use Neural Networks (NNs) to price American put options. We propose two NN models-a simple one and a more complex one-and we discuss the performance of two NN models with the Least-Squares Monte Carlo (LSM) method. This study relies on American put option market prices, for...

A method to price American-style option contracts in a limited information framework is introduced. The pricing methodology is based on sequential Monte Carlo techniques, as presented in Doucet, de Freitas, and Gordon's text "Sequential Monte Carlo Methods in Practice", and the least-squares...

An efficient conditioning technique, the so-called Brownian Bridge simulation, has previously been applied to eliminate pricing bias that arises in applications of the standard discrete-time Monte Carlo method to evaluate options written on the continuous-time extrema of an underlying asset. It...

Derivatives on the Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index (VIX) have gained significant popularity over the last decade. The pricing of VIX derivatives involves evaluating the square root of the expected realised variance which cannot be computed by direct Monte Carlo methods. Least...