Hedging Derivatives to Derive the Heston–Hull–White Pricing PDE
Summary
The document considers how to derive a pricing PDE for a derivative under the Heston–Hull–White model, where the stock, stochastic variance, and short rate are correlated. It identifies a problem with applying the usual discounting transformation directly: the short rate is random, so its accumulated discount factor cannot be treated as an ordinary deterministic function when differentiating the price with respect to the rate. The proposed way forward is to build a self-financing portfolio containing the target derivative, the stock, another option, and a zero-coupon bond. Hedge the stock, variance, and rate risks, then require the resulting riskless portfolio to earn the short rate. Under Hull–White dynamics, the bond price is a function of the current short rate and has its own rate PDE, which can support the derivation. The response sketches this method but does not carry out the full derivation or state the final PDE; it points to a separate Heston derivation for further detail.
Key ideas
- The Heston–Hull–White model includes stochastic stock variance and a stochastic short rate, with correlations among the drivers.
- A random short rate makes a direct deterministic discounting transformation problematic when deriving the price PDE.
- A self-financing portfolio can be hedged against stock, variance, and interest-rate risks.
- A zero-coupon bond provides an instrument for hedging rate exposure and has its own PDE under Hull–White dynamics.
- The response outlines a derivation strategy but does not provide the complete PDE.
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Full text
# Deriving the Heston-Hull-White PDE
# Deriving the Heston-Hull-White PDE
I'm trying to derive the Heston-Hull-White PDE. The correct backwards PDE is equation (1.3) of this paper on page (2). I will begin deriving the forward PDE, but switching between the two is trivial.
The model I am working with is the Heston-Hull-White model, given below:
$$\mathrm{d}S = rS\mathrm{d}t + \sqrt{v}S\mathrm{d}W_1$$ $$\mathrm{d}v = \kappa (\bar{v}-v)\mathrm{d}t+\omega\sqrt{v}\mathrm{d}W_2$$ $$\mathrm{d}r = \lambda(\theta(t)-r)\mathrm{d}t + \eta\mathrm{d}W_3\text{.}$$
I assume that $S$ and $v$ have correlation $\rho_{S,v}$, $S$ and $r$ have correlation $\rho_{S,r}$, and $v$ and $r$ have correlation $\rho_{v,r}$.
My approach is to apply the Feynman-Kac theorem. This is standard, so I will skip most steps.
- Let $h(S(T))$ be the payoff function of the option. For a vanilla call, $$h(S(T))=S(T)-K\text{.}\tag{1}$$
- Let $$g(t, S(t), v(t), r(t)) =\tilde{\mathbb{E}}\Big(e^{-\int_{u=t}^{u=T}r(u)\mathrm{d}u}h(X(T))\Big)\tag{2}$$ be the price of the option. My goal is to find the PDE (implied by Feynman-Kac) for $g$.
- $g$ is not a martingale, so we want to first make a transformation to get a martingale. If we follow a Black-Scholes example, we may try to do something like this: $$f(t, S(t), v(t), r(t)) = e^{-\int_{u=0}^{u=t}r(u)\mathrm{d}u}g(t, S(t), v(t), r(t))\text{.}\tag{3}$$ so that $f$ becomes a martingale. The problem here is that $r$ is a random variable, and we can't pull it outside of the expected value. I continue now as if the definition of $f$ makes sense.
- I now apply Itô's lemma and set the coefficient of $\mathrm{d}t$ equal to $0$. That gives the following PDE for $f$: $$f_t + rSf_S +\kappa(\bar{v}-v)f_v+\lambda(\theta(t)-r)f_r + \rho_{S,v}Sv\omega f_{s,v} + \rho_{S, r}\eta S\sqrt{v}f_{S, r} + \rho{v, r}\omega \sqrt{v}\eta f_{v, r}+\frac{1}{2}vS^2f_{S, S} + \frac{1}{2}v\omega^2f_{v, v} + \frac{1}{2}f_{r, r}\eta^{2}=0\text{.}\tag{4}$$
The PDE in (4) is the PDE for $f$, but I need the PDE for $g$. Following a Black-Scholes example, I get the PDE of $g$ by computing the partial derivatives of $f$ in terms of $g$ using (3).
For example, I compute
$$f_t = e^{-\int_{u=0}^{u=t}r(u)\mathrm{d}u}(-r(t) g + g_t)\text{.}\tag{5}$$
I then substitute this back into equation (4).
Now I need to compute $f_r$, but again, $r$ is a random variable. Step (3) was indeed a mistake. How do I continue?
## Answer by ir7 (score 1)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/66033
(Just what I think is the right start)
The pricing PDE comes out of the dynamics of a self-financing portfolio, $\Pi$, hedged against the movements of stock, $S$, its volatility, $v$, and interest rate $r$.
With $V$ the target path-independent derivative, $U$ vanilla European option (different from $V$), and $P$ zero-coupon bond, the portfolio would be:
$$ \Pi = V+\alpha S + \beta U + \gamma P,$$ $$ d\Pi = dV+\alpha dS + \beta dU + \gamma dP, $$
and we would exploit the fact that $\Pi$ is riskless (set the integrands of $dS$, $dv$ and $dr$ to $0$) and also the fact that it returns $r$ :
$$ d\Pi = r \Pi dt. $$
We note that, under HW dynamics, $P(t,T)$ is just a deterministic function of $r_t$ only (so we don't need to worry about the integrated short rate) and it has its own PDE (in $r$ variable).
This would be an extension of the detailed derivation of Heston PDE by Rouah here.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.