Monte-Carlo Simulation with Boundary Conditions (with Applications to Stress Testing, CEV and Variance-Gamma Simulation)

40 Pages Posted: 5 Apr 2010 Last revised: 27 Apr 2010

See all articles by Christian P. Fries

Christian P. Fries

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) - Faculty of Mathematics; DZ Bank AG

Joerg Kienitz

University of Cape Town (UCT); University of Wuppertal - Applied Mathematics; mrig

Date Written: March 31, 2010

Abstract

In this paper we discuss how to incorporate analytic boundary conditions into a Monte-Carlo simulation framework and discuss their applications. The method introduced can dramatically improve the stability, robustness and accuracy of the valuation, calculation of sensitivities and stress testing, i.e., valuation under stressed model parameters.

We propose a Monte-Carlo simulation scheme which features boundary conditions for the underlying value process. The boundary conditions are analogous to the boundary conditions of a PDE. The Monte-Carlo simulation will then be modified to generate paths only within the boundaries and generate the corresponding Monte-Carlo weights. In addition, the valuation algorithm is adjusted to incorporate the analytic boundary conditions, using given or estimated boundary values for the value process.

The complete setup consists of four parts: The definition of a boundary and the corresponding in-bound and out-bound regime. This is done for each time step. The definition of a Monte-Carlo scheme for which all paths remain within the boundary. The definition of a boundary condition which defines the value process on the out-bound region and its valuation conditional to being in the in-bound region at the previous time-step. A modified pricing algorithm which allows to evaluate the product using the Monte-Carlo scheme within the boundary conditions, adding the boundary value process.

We present four different methods for calculating the product specific boundary value process: analytic, super-hedge, sub-hedge and numeric. Among the applications of the method we specifically lock at its behavior under stressed data.

Keywords: Monte Carlo Simulation, Valuation, Stress Test, Variance Reduction, Boundary Conditions, Numerical Schemes, CEV, Variance Gamma

JEL Classification: C15, G13

Suggested Citation

Fries, Christian P. and Kienitz, Joerg, Monte-Carlo Simulation with Boundary Conditions (with Applications to Stress Testing, CEV and Variance-Gamma Simulation) (March 31, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1582466 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1582466

Christian P. Fries (Contact Author)

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) - Faculty of Mathematics ( email )

Theresienstrasse 39
Munich
Germany

DZ Bank AG ( email )

60265 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

Joerg Kienitz

University of Cape Town (UCT) ( email )

Private Bag X3
Rondebosch, Western Cape 7701
South Africa

University of Wuppertal - Applied Mathematics ( email )

Gaußstraße 20
42097 Wuppertal
Germany

mrig ( email )

Frankfurt
Germany

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
791
Abstract Views
4,009
Rank
66,513
PlumX Metrics