Optimal pairs trading with dynamic mean-variance objective

Pairs trading is a typical example of a convergence trading strategy. Investors buy relatively under-priced assets simultaneously, and sell relatively over-priced assets to exploit temporary mispricing. This study examines optimal pairs trading strategies under symmetric and non-symmetric trading constraints. Under the assumption that the price spread of a pair of correlated securities follows a mean-reverting Ornstein-Uhlenbeck(OU) process, analytical trading strategies are obtained under a mean-variance(MV) framework. Model estimation and empirical studies on trading strategies have been conducted using data on pairs of stocks and futures traded on China’s securities market. These results indicate that pairs trading strategies have fairly good performance.

Guaranteed Deterministic Approach to Superhedging: Case of Binary European Option

For the superreplication problem with discrete time, a guaranteed deterministic formulation is considered: the problem is to guarantee coverage of the contingent liability on sold option under all admissible scenarios. These scenarios are defined by means of a priori defined compacts dependent on price prehistory: the price increments at each point in time must lie in the corresponding compacts. In a general case, we consider a market with trading constraints and assume the absence of transaction costs. The formulation of the problem is game theoretic and leads to the Bellman–Isaacs equations. This paper analyses the solution to these equations for a specific pricing problem, i.e., for a binary option of the European type, within a multiplicative market model, with no trading constraints. A number of solution properties and an algorithm for the numerical solution of the Bellman equations are derived. The interest in this problem, from a mathematical prospective, is related to the discontinuity of the option payoff function.

A guaranteed deterministic approach to superhedging: mixed strategies and game equilibrium

For a discrete-time superreplication problem, a guaranteed deterministic formulation is considered: the problem is to ensure a cheapest coverage of the contingent claim on an option under all scenarios which are set using a priori defined compacts, depending on the price history: price increments at each moment of time must lie in the corresponding compacts. The market is considered with trading constraints and without transaction costs. The statement of the problem is game-theoretic in nature and leads directly to the Bellman - Isaacs equations. In this article, we introduce a mixed extension of the ``market'' pure strategies. Several results concerning game equilibrium are obtained.