arXiv research

Financial markets provide an ideal frame for the study of crossing or first-passage time events of non-Gaussian correlated dynamics mainly because large data sets are available. Tick-by-tick data of six futures markets are herein considered resulting in fat tailed first-passage time probabilities. The scaling of the re…

We solve the first-passage problem for the Heston random diffusion model. We obtain exact analytical expressions for the survival and hitting probabilities to a given level of return. We study several asymptotic behaviors and obtain approximate forms of these probabilities which prove, among other interesting propertie…

Neural networks predict shapes of first passage percolation sets.

Efficient method for lookback option pricing under Markov models.

First passage models, where corporate assets undergo correlated random walks and a company defaults if its assets fall below a threshold provide an attractive framework for modeling the default process. Typical one year default correlations are small, i.e., of order a few percent, but nonetheless including correlations…

Riemannian first-passage percolation (FPP) is a continuum model, with a distance function arising from a random Riemannian metric in $\R^d$. Our main result is a shape theorem for this model, which says that large balls under this metric converge to a deterministic shape under rescaling. As a consequence, we show that …

We introduce a unified framework for solving first passage times of time-homogeneous diffusion processes. According to the killed version potential theory and the perturbation theory, we are able to deduce closed-form solutions for probability densities of single-sided level crossing problem. The framework is applicabl…

Classifies financial risk into three levels based on first passage times.

FPP preserves sublinear Morse boundaries in geodesic graphs.

We introduce a new diffusion process Xt to describe asset prices within an economic bubble cycle. The main feature of the process, which differs from existing models, is the drift term where a mean-reversion is taken based on an exponential decay of the scaled price. Our study shows the scaling factor on Xt is crucial …

Optimizes hedge ratio for delta-neutral liquidity positions in AMMs.

First-passage percolation affects graph properties like curvature and geodesics.

We study first passage percolation (FPP) on a Gromov-hyperbolic group $G$ with boundary $\partial G$ equipped with the Patterson-Sullivan measure $ν$. We associate an i.i.d.\ collection of random passage times to each edge of a Cayley graph of $G$, and investigate classical questions about the asymptotics of first pass…

We study time reversal, last passage time, and $h$-transform of linear diffusions. For general diffusions with killing, we obtain the probability density of the last passage time to an arbitrary level and analyze the distribution of the time left until killing after the last passage time. With these tools, we develop a…

This paper stidies the first passage times to constant boundaries for mixed-exponential jump diffusion processes. Explicit solutions of the Laplace transforms of the distribution of the first passage times, the joint distribution of the first passage times and undershoot (overshoot) are obtained. As applications, we pr…

In this paper, we will discuss an approximation of the characteristic function of the first passage time for a Levy process using the martingale approach. The characteristic function of the first passage time of the tempered stable process is provided explicitly or by an indirect numerical method. This will be applied …

First-passage times in random walks have a vast number of diverse applications in physics, chemistry, biology, and finance. In general, environmental conditions for a stochastic process are not constant on the time scale of the average first-passage time, or control might be applied to reduce noise. We investigate mome…

Formulae derived for survival and first passage times in stochastic processes.

Study on ion travel time on curved surfaces.

Study of a generalized geometric Brownian motion with varying entry and exit rates.

Motivated by the interplay between structural and reduced form credit models, we propose to model the firm value process as a time-changed Brownian motion that may include jumps and stochastic volatility effects, and to study the first passage problem for such processes. We are lead to consider modifying the standard f…

We develop a new Monte Carlo variance reduction method to estimate the expectation of two commonly encountered path-dependent functionals: first-passage times and occupation times of sets. The method is based on a recursive approximation of the first-passage time probability and expected occupation time of sets of a Le…

In this note we apply the recently established Wiener-Hopf Monte Carlo (WHMC) simulation technique for Levy processes from Kuznetsov et al. [17] to path functionals, in particular first passage times, overshoots, undershoots and the last maximum before the passage time. Such functionals have many applications, for inst…

Novel F2NARX model improves surrogate modeling for stochastic dynamical systems.

We propose a hybrid approach aimed at improving the sample efficiency in goal-directed reinforcement learning. We do this via a two-step mechanism where firstly, we approximate a model from Model-Free reinforcement learning. Then, we leverage this approximate model along with a notion of reachability using Mean First P…

Research in psychology and neuroscience has successfully modeled decision making as a process of noisy evidence accumulation to a decision bound. While there are several variants and implementations of this idea, the majority of these models make use of a noisy accumulation between two absorbing boundaries. A common as…

In this paper we consider the problem of pricing a perpetual American put option in an exponential regime-switching Lévy model. For the case of the (dense) class of phase-type jumps and finitely many regimes we derive an explicit expression for the value function. The solution of the corresponding first passage problem…

We propose a general method to obtain approximation of the first passage time distribution for the birth-death processes. We rely on the general properties of birth-death processes, Keilson's theorem and the concept of Riemann sum to obtain closed-form expressions. We apply the method to the three selected birth-death …

We consider the problem of computing first-passage time distributions for reaction processes modelled by master equations. We show that this generally intractable class of problems is equivalent to a sequential Bayesian inference problem for an auxiliary observation process. The solution can be approximated efficiently…

We present an empirical study of the first passage time (FPT) of order book prices needed to observe a prescribed price change Delta, the time to fill (TTF) for executed limit orders and the time to cancel (TTC) for canceled ones in a double auction market. We find that the distribution of all three quantities decays a…

We consider structural credit modeling in the important special case where the log-leverage ratio of the firm is a time-changed Brownian motion (TCBM) with the time-change taken to be an independent increasing process. Following the approach of Black and Cox, one defines the time of default to be the first passage time…

The present paper introduces a structural framework to model dependent defaults, with a particular interest in their contagion.

We develop continuous time Markov chain (CTMC) approximation of one-dimensional diffusions with a lower sticky boundary. Approximate solutions to the action of the Feynman-Kac operator associated with a sticky diffusion and first passage probabilities are obtained using matrix exponentials. We show how to compute matri…

The Wiener-Hopf factorization is obtained in closed form for a phase type approximation to the CGMY Lévy process. This allows, for the approximation, exact computation of first passage times to barrier levels via Laplace transform inversion. Calibration of the CGMY model to market option prices defines the risk neutral…

For a given Markov process $X$ and survival function $\overline{H}$ on $\mathbb{R}^+$, the inverse first-passage time problem (IFPT) is to find a barrier function $b:\mathbb{R}^+\to[-\infty,+\infty]$ such that the survival function of the first-passage time $τ_b=\inf \{t\ge0:X(t)<b(t)\}$ is given by $\overline{H}$. In …

In this manuscript, we analytically and numerically study statistical properties of an heteroskedastic process based on the celebrated ARCH generator of random variables whose variance is defined by a memory of $q_{m}$-exponencial, form ($e_{q_{m}=1}^{x}=e^{x}$). Specifically, we inspect the self-correlation function o…

We study a problem of finding an optimal stopping strategy to liquidate an asset with unknown drift. Taking a Bayesian approach, we model the initial beliefs of an individual about the drift parameter by allowing an arbitrary probability distribution to characterise the uncertainty about the drift parameter. Filtering …

Optimizes search times by resetting agents when a threshold is reached.

While records and order statistics of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables X_1, ..., X_N are fully understood, much less is known for strongly correlated random variables, which is often the situation encountered in statistical physics. Recently, it was shown, in a series of works, that one…

We consider a simplified model of the continuous double auction where prices are integers varying from $1$ to $N$ with limit orders and market orders, but quantity per order limited to a single share. For this model, the order process is equivalent to two $M/M/1$ queues. We study the behaviour of the auction in the low…

For the sum process $X=X^1+X^2$ of a bivariate Lévy process $(X^1,X^2)$ with possibly dependent components, we derive a quintuple law describing the first upwards passage event of $X$ over a fixed barrier, caused by a jump, by the joint distribution of five quantities: the time relative to the time of the previous maxi…

Volatility measures the amplitude of price fluctuations. Despite it is one of the most important quantities in finance, volatility is not directly observable. Here we apply a maximum likelihood method which assumes that price and volatility follow a two-dimensional diffusion process where volatility is the stochastic d…

A new model calculates LGD distribution based on firm value and credit market conditions.

We carry out a large-scale empirical data analysis to examine the efficiency of the so-called pairs trading. On the basis of relevant three thresholds, namely, starting, profit-taking, and stop-loss for the `first-passage process' of the spread (gap) between two highly-correlated stocks, we construct an effective strat…

These notes are the first half of the contents of the course given by the second author at the Bachelier Seminar (February 8-15-22 2008) at IHP. They also correspond to topics studied by the first author for her Ph.D.thesis.

Optimal threshold resetting reduces search time for multiple diffusive searchers.

We present a detailed study on the mean first-passage time of volatility processes. We analyze the theoretical expressions based on the most common stochastic volatility models along with empirical results extracted from daily data of major financial indices. We find in all these data sets a very similar behavior that …

The paper explains a geometry puzzle from Plato's Meno.