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Finance and Economics Discussion Series
The Finance and Economics Discussion Series logo links to FEDS home page Path-Dependent Option Valuation when the Underlying Path Is Discontinuous
Chunsheng Zhou
1997-16


Abstract: The payoffs of path-dependent options depend not only on the final values, but also on the sample paths of the prices of the underlying assets. A rigorous modeling of the underlying asset price processes which can appropriately describe the sample paths is therefore critical for pricing path-dependent options. This paper allows for discontinuities in the sample paths of the underlying asset prices by assuming that these prices follow jump diffusion processes. A general yet tractable approach is presented to value a variety of path-dependent options with discontinuous processes. The numerical examples show that ignoring the jump risk may lead to serious biases in path-dependent option pricing.

Keywords: Path-dependent, option, jump diffusion

Full paper (218 KB PDF) | Full paper (201 KB Postscript)


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Last update: July 16, 1997