Pricing a Vasicek Zero-Coupon Bond Call with Forward Measures
Summary
The document develops a pricing route for a European call on a zero-coupon bond in the Vasicek short-rate model. The bond price is represented as an exponential-affine function of the current short rate, and the option payoff is split into a bond-value term and a strike term, each restricted to the event that the bond price at option expiry exceeds the strike.
The response applies changes of numeraire to express those event probabilities under the bond-forward measures associated with the bond’s maturity and the option’s expiry. This yields a price written as a difference of discounted bond values multiplied by the corresponding forward-measure probabilities. The method clarifies how the numeraire change handles the discounting and probability terms. The exchange stops at this representation: it does not carry out the remaining probability calculations using the Vasicek bond-price distribution or spell out a final closed-form formula. Readers still need to evaluate those probabilities to obtain a numerical price.
Key ideas
- The Vasicek model gives an exponential-affine expression for zero-coupon bond prices.
- A bond call payoff can be separated into bond and strike terms on the in-the-money event.
- Changing to bond-forward measures rewrites discounted payoff terms as bond prices times event probabilities.
- The option price uses probabilities under measures linked to the underlying bond and the option expiry.
- The derivation presented does not finish the Vasicek probability calculations needed for a numerical formula.
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# Analytic ZCB call option under Vasicek
# Analytic ZCB call option under Vasicek
The call option with strike $X$ and maturity $T$ on a ZCB maturing at time $S$, where $T\le S$, is $$ZBO(t,T,S,X)=E_t[e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}(P(T,S)-X)^+]$$ The ZCB price is denoted by $$P(t,T)=E_t[e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}]$$ I am familiar with the Black-Scholes metholodogy of deriving the call option price from first principles, and I am interested in applying the methodology here to compute the bond option price. The Vasicek model allows the bond price to be computed analytically. The SDE for the short rate is $$dr_t=k(\theta-r_t)dt+\sigma dW_t$$ and it can be shown that the bond price is $$P(t,T)=A(t,T)e^{-B(t,T)r_t}$$ where $$B(t,T)=\frac{1}{k}(1-e^{-k(T-t)})$$ and $$A(t,T)=\exp{\bigg[\Big(\theta-\frac{\sigma^2}{2k^2}\Big)[B(t,T)-T+t]-\frac{\sigma^2}{4k}B(t,T)^2}\bigg]$$ My initial steps are to express $ZBO(t,T,S,X)$ in terms of indicator functions, as follows \begin{align} ZBO(t,T,S,X)&=E_t\Big(e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}(P(T,S)-X)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)\\ &=E_t\Big(e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}P(T,S)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)-XE_t\Big(e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)\\ &=E_t\Big(e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}E_t[e^{-\int_T^Sr_sds}]\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)-XE_t\Big(e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)\\ &=E_t\Big(e^{-\int_t^Sr_sds}\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)-XE_t\Big(e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)\\ &=E_t\Big(P(t,S)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)-XE_t\Big(P(t,T)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)\\ \end{align} The main issues are that I have assumed $e^{-\int_t^Tr_sds}E_t[e^{-\int_T^Sr_sds}]=e^{-\int_t^Sr_sds}$ and that $P(t,T)$ appears to be a random variable, even though it is a $\mathbb{Q}$ expectation and thus a constant. Furthermore, the Black-Scholes methodology can only be applied after changing numeraires. If there is a Radon-Nikodym derivative that can do the following $$E_t\Big(P(t,S)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)-XE_t\Big(P(t,T)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)=E_t\Big(P(T,S)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)-XE_t\Big(P(T,S)\mathbb{1}_{P(T,S)>K}\Big)$$ then the bond price can easily be found.
Any help is appreciated.
## Answer by user16651 (score 2, accepted)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/30789
Hint
Note $$X=(P(T,S)-K)^+=(P(T,S)-K)1_{P(T,S)>K}\tag 1$$ We know $$V(t,T,S,K)=\mathbb{E^Q}_t\left[\frac{B(t)}{B(T)}X\right]\tag 2$$ $(1)$ and $(2)$, we have $$V(t,T,S,K)=\underbrace{\mathbb{E}^Q_t\left[\frac{B(t)}{B(T)}P(T,S)1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]}_{I}-K\,\underbrace{\mathbb{E}_t^Q\left[\frac{B(t)}{B(T)}1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]}_{J}\tag 3$$ Now we should calculate $I$ and $J$. By application of Bayes formula, we have $$\mathbb{E}_t^{Q_S}\left[1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]=\frac{\mathbb{E}_t^Q\left[\frac{B(t)}{B(T)}P(T,S)1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]}{P(t,S)}$$ thus $$I=\mathbb{E}_t^Q\left[\frac{B(t)}{B(T)}P(T,S)1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]=P(t,S)\mathbb{E}_t^{Q_S}\left[1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]\tag 4$$ on the other hand $$\mathbb{E}_t^{Q_S}\left[1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]=Q_{S}\left(P(T,S)>K\Big{|}\,\mathcal{F}_t\right)\tag 5$$ $(4)$ and $(5)$ $$I=P(t,S)Q_{S}\left(P(T,S)>K\Big{|}\,\mathcal{F}_t\right)\tag 6$$ Similarly, we have $$\mathbb{E}_t^{Q_T}\left[1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]=\frac{\mathbb{E}_t^Q\left[\frac{P(T,T)}{B(T)P(0,T)}1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]}{\frac{P(t,T)}{B(t)P(0,T)}}=\frac{\mathbb{E}_t^Q\left[\frac{B(t)}{B(T)}1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]}{P(t,T)}$$ therefore $$J=P(t,T)\mathbb{E}_t^{Q_T}\left[1_{P(T,S)>K}\right]=P(t,T)\,Q_{T}\left(P(T,S)>K\Big{|}\,\mathcal{F}_t\right)\tag 7$$ $(3)$ , $(6)$ and $(7)$ $$V(t,T,S,K)=P(t,S)Q_{S}\left(P(T,S)>K\Big{|}\,\mathcal{F}_t\right)-KP(t,T)\,Q_{T}\left(P(T,S)>K\Big{|}\,\mathcal{F}_t\right)$$ Note
- $B(t)$ is Money account.
- $Q_T$ and $Q_S$ are forward measures.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.