We fit the volatility fluctuations of the S&P 500 index well by a Chi distribution, and the distribution of log-returns by a corresponding superposition of Gaussian distributions. The Fourier transform of this is, remarkably, of the Tsallis type. An option pricing formula is derived from the...

In these notes, we present some methods and applications of large deviations to finance and insurance. We begin with the classical ruin problem related to the Cramer's theorem and give en extension to an insurance model with investment in stock market. We then describe how large deviation...

The paper offers a unified approach to the study of three locally adaptive estimation methods in the context of univariate time series from both theoretical and empirical points of view. A general procedure for the computation of critical values is given. The underlying model encompasses all...

The dynamics of minority games with agents trading on different time scales is studied via dynamical mean-field theory. We analyze the case where the agents' decision-making process is deterministic and its stochastic generalization with finite heterogeneous learning rates. In each case, we...

In this article, we investigate whether exchange rate risk is priced. We use a multivariate GARCH-in-Mean specification and test alternative conditional international CAPM versions. Our results support strongly the international asset-pricing model that includes exchange rate risk for both...

The definition of time is still an open question when one deals with high frequency time series. If time is simply the calendar time, prices can be modeled as continuous random processes and values resulting from transactions or given quotes are discrete samples of this underlying dynamics. On...

We analyze the European transition economies and show that time series for most of major indices exhibit (i) power-law correlations in their values, power-law correlations in their magnitudes, and (iii) asymmetric probability distribution. We propose a stochastic model that can generate time...

We study scale invariant but not necessarily conformal invariant deformations of non-relativistic conformal field theories from the dual gravity viewpoint. We present the corresponding metric that solves the Einstein equation coupled with a massive vector field. We find that, within the class of...

Let $\cF$ be a set of $M$ classification procedures with values in $[-1,1]$. Given a loss function, we want to construct a procedure which mimics at the best possible rate the best procedure in $\cF$. This fastest rate is called optimal rate of aggregation. Considering a continuous scale of loss...

In this paper, we obtain asymptotic formulas with error estimates for the implied volatility associated with a European call pricing function. We show that these formulas imply Lee's moment formulas for the implied volatility and the tail-wing formulas due to Benaim and Friz. In addition, we...