Explicit Finite-Difference Schemes for Option Market-Making HJB Equations
Summary
The document concerns numerical solution of a Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation for an option market-making problem. The value function depends on time, variance, and aggregate Vega exposure; the equation combines variance dynamics, a term reflecting the difference between physical and pricing-measure drifts, a quadratic exposure penalty, and jump terms for quotes and trades. The proposed approach discretizes time, variance, and Vega, approximates time and variance derivatives with finite differences, and steps backward from a zero terminal value.
The excerpt is a question about whether this explicit Euler scheme is viable, rather than a solved numerical analysis. It gives no stability or convergence results and leaves boundary treatment, the jump integral’s numerical approximation, grid alignment, and the appropriate drift discretization unresolved. Its value is in identifying the structure of the problem and a candidate discretization; further analysis is needed before trusting computed values or using them for quotes.
Key ideas
- The HJB value function is indexed by time, variance, and Vega exposure.
- The equation includes diffusion, risk terms, and jump contributions linked to market-making decisions.
- The proposed method uses finite differences and steps backward from the terminal condition.
- The excerpt does not establish stability or convergence of the explicit scheme.
- Boundary conditions and numerical treatment of jump terms also need specification.
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Full text
# Solving option market making problem
# Solving option market making problem
I am currently working on a paper for quoting option as a market maker from Bastien Baldacci , Philippe Bergault & Olivier Guéant
Without dwelling on details on how to obtain the HJB equation for this problem, I would like to know if the scheme I wrote for solving it numerically is viable or did I miss something.
I need to solve the following equation :
$$\begin{aligned} 0 = & \; \partial_{t}v(t,v,\mathcal{V}) + a_{\mathbb{P}}(t,v)\partial_{v}v(t,v,\mathcal{V}) + \frac{1}{2}v\xi^{2}\partial^{2}_{vv}v(t,v,\mathcal{V}) \\ & + \mathcal{V}\frac{a_{\mathbb{P}}(t,v) - a_{\mathbb{Q}}(t,v)}{2\sqrt{v}} - \frac{\gamma \xi^{2}}{8} \mathcal{V}^{2} \\ & + \sum_{Nb = 1}^{Nb = N}\sum_{l = a,l=b} \int_{R^{+}} z \, \mathbb{1}_{| \mathcal{V} - \phi(l)z\mathcal{V}^{I}| \leq \tilde{V}} H^{Nb,l}(\frac{v(t,v,\mathcal{V}) - v(t,v,\mathcal{V} - \phi(j)z\mathcal{V}^{i})}{z}) \mu(z)^{Nb,l} \end{aligned}$$
where H corresponds to a hamiltonian, $H(p) = \sup_{\delta > \delta_{\infty}} \Lambda(\delta)(\delta - p)$, $\delta_{\infty}$ is a constant. and terminal condition $v(T,v,\mathcal{V}) = 0$ ($\xi$, $\gamma$ are also some constant parameters).
I want to calculate this value function over a grid $[0,T] \times [ 0.1,0.2] \times [ -\tilde{V},+\tilde{V}]$. I denoted the time step $dt$, variance step $dv$, Vega $dV$. I denote $v^{k}_{i,j} = v(t_{k},v_{i},V_{j})$ I approximate the partial derviatives as follow :
$\partial_{t}v(t_{k},v_{i},\mathcal{V}_{j}) = \frac{v^{k}_{i,j} -v^{k-1}_{i,j}}{dt}$
$\partial_{v}v(t_{k},v_{i},\mathcal{V}_{j}) = \frac{v^{k}_{i+1,j} -v^{k}_{i-1,j}}{2dv}$
$\partial^{2}_{v}v(t_{k},v_{i},\mathcal{V}_{j}) = \frac{v^{k}_{i-1,j} -2 v^{k}_{i,j} + v^{k}_{i+1,j} }{dv^{2}}$
Then the scheme calculates the previous time step in function of the current time step.
Namely $$\begin{aligned} v^{k-1}_{i,j} = & \, v^{k}_{i,j} + dt \cdot \Big( a_{\mathbb{P}}(t_{k},v_{i}) \frac{v^{k}_{i,j} -v^{k}_{i-1,j}}{dv} \\ & + \frac{1}{2}v_{i}\xi^{2}\frac{v^{k}_{i-1,j} -2 v^{k}_{i,j} + v^{k}_{i+1,j} }{dv^{2}} + \mathcal{V}_{j} \frac{a_{\mathbb{P}}(t_{k},v_{i})- a_{\mathbb{Q}}(t_{k},v_{i})}{2 \sqrt{v_{j}}} \\ & - \frac{\gamma \xi^{2}}{8} \mathcal{V}_{j}^{2} + \sum_{Nb = 1}^{Nb = N}\sum_{l = a,l=b} \int_{R} z \mathbb{1}_{} H^{Nb,l}(\frac{v^{k}_{i,j} - v^{k}_{i,j-\phi(l)} }{z}) \mu(z)^{Nb,l} \Big) \end{aligned}$$
I don't know much about numerically methods for HJB equations so I just derived some explicit Euler scheme, is this correct or there are conditions for convergence and all ?Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.