arXiv research

Study on ion travel time on curved surfaces.

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…

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

Neural networks predict shapes of first passage percolation sets.

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…

We apply the theory of continuous time random walks to study some aspects of the extreme value problem applied to financial time series. We focus our attention on extreme times, specifically the mean exit time and the mean first-passage time. We set the general equations for these extremes and evaluate the mean exit ti…

FPP preserves sublinear Morse boundaries in geodesic graphs.

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…

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…

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

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 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 …

Optimal threshold resetting reduces search time for multiple diffusive searchers.

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…

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 …

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 …

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

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…

Efficient method for lookback option pricing under Markov models.

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…

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…

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…

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

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 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 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 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 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…

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 …

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

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

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…

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…

Estimates roughness of financial volatility paths using horizontal visibility graphs.

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…

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…

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

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.

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…

Researchers calculate the price of a perpetual put option in Lévy models.

Possible distributions are discussed for intertrade durations and first-passage processes in financial markets. The view-point of renewal theory is assumed. In order to represent market data with relatively long durations, two types of distributions are used, namely, a distribution derived from the so-called Mittag-Lef…

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 …

Drawdown (resp. drawup) of a stochastic process, also referred as the reflected process at its supremum (resp. infimum), has wide applications in many areas including financial risk management, actuarial mathematics and statistics. In this paper, for general time-homogeneous Markov processes, we study the joint law of …

Many problems in finance are related to first passage times. Among all of them, we chose three on which we contributed personally. Our first example relates Kolmogorov-Smirnov like goodness-of-fit tests, modified in such a way that tail events and core events contribute equally to the test (in the standard Kolmogorov-S…

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 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…

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