Multi-Asset Stochastic Local Variance Contracts

Abstract:     
Variance swaps now trade actively over-the-counter (OTC) on both stocks and stock indices. Also trading OTC are variations on variance swaps which localize the payoff in time, in the underlying asset price, or both. Given that the price of the underlying asset evolves continuously over time, it is well known that there exists a semirobust hedge for these localized variance contracts. Remarkably, the hedge succeeds even though the stochastic process describing the instantaneous variance is never specified. In this paper, we present a generalization of these results to the case of two or more underlying assets.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 32

Keywords: variance swap, basket option, stochastic volatility

Accepted Paper Series