Calibrating a trading rule using a historical simulation (also called backtest) contributes to backtest overfitting, which in turn leads to underperformance. In this paper we propose a procedure for determining the optimal trading rule (OTR) without running alternative model configurations...

This paper is motivated by questions about averages of stochastic processes which originate in mathematical finance, originally in connection with valuing the so-called Asian options. Starting with research of Yor's in 1992, these questions about exponential functionals of Brownian motion have...

We consider a simple single period economy in which agents invest so as to maximize expected utility of terminal wealth. We assume the existence of three asset classes, namely a riskless asset (the bond), a single risky asset (the stock), and European options of all strikes (derivatives). In...

We first present a brief but essentially complete survey of the literature on barrier option pricing. We then present two extensions of European up-and-out call option valuation. The first allows for an initial protection period during which the option cannot be knocked out. The second considers...

We show that under the Black-Scholes assumption the price of an arithmetic average Asian call option with fixed strike increases with the level of volatility. This statement is not trivial to prove and for other models in general wrong. In fact we demonstrate that in a simple binomial model no...