Option contracts can be valued by using the Black-Scholes equation, a partial differential equation with initial conditions. An exact solution for European style options is known. The computation time and the error need to be minimized simultaneously. In this paper, the authors have solved the Black-Scholes equation by employing a reasonably accurate implicit method. Options with known analytic...

We introduce the standard fourth order compact finite difference formulae. We show how these formulae apply in the special case of the heat equation. It is well known that the American option pricing problem may be formulated in terms of the Black Scholes partial differential equation (PDE) together with a free boundary condition. Standard methods allow this problem to be transformed into a mov...

This paper presents a model for option pricing in markets that experience financial crashes. The stochastic differential equation (SDE) of stock price dynamics is coupled to a post-crash market index. The resultant SDE is shown to have stock price and time dependent volatility. The partial differential equation (PDE) for call prices is derived using risk-neutral pricing. European call prices ar...

We pursue an inverse approach to utility theory and consumption & investment problems. Instead of specifying an agent’s utility function and deriving her actions, we assume we observe her actions (i.e. her consumption and investment strategies) and ask if it is possible to derive a utility function for which the observed behaviour is optimal. We work in continuous time both in a deterministic a...

European options can be priced using the analytical solution of the Black-Scholes-Merton differential equation with the appropriate boundary conditions. A different approach and the one commonly used in situations where no analytical solution is available is the Monte Carlo Simulation. We present the results of Monte Carlo simulations for pricing European options and we compare with the analyti...

“Normality” of Stock Prices Bo Shi Abstract. The Black-Scholes Model, often simply called Black-Scholes, models the varying price of financial instruments over time: stocks in particular. This model assumes that returns on the underlying stock are lognormally distributed, which can be reasonable for many assets that offer options. However, from a selection of 100 stock histories, I found that a...

Nowadays, options are common financial derivatives. For this reason, by increase of applications for these financial derivatives, the problem of options pricing is one of the most important economic issues. With the development of stochastic models, the need for randomly computational methods caused the generation of a new field called financial engineering. In the financial engineering the pre...

In this paper we analyze a nonlinear generalization of the Black-Scholes equation for pricing American style call option in which the volatility may depend on the underlying asset price and the Gamma of the option. We propose a novel method of pricing American style call options by means of transformation of the free boundary problem for a nonlinear Black-Scholes equation into the so-called Gam...

In this paper, Laplace homotopy perturbation method, which is combined form of the Laplace transform and the homotopy perturbation method, is employed to obtain a quick and accurate solution to the fractional Black Scholes equation with boundary condition for a European option pricing problem. The Black-Scholes formula is used as a model for valuing European or American call and put options on ...