Using Girsanov to Derive Quanto and Compo Asset Dynamics
Summary
The explanation changes from the foreign risk-neutral measure to the domestic measure using a Radon–Nikodym density tied to the exchange rate and money market accounts. Girsanov’s theorem shifts the correlated Brownian motions, producing domestic-measure dynamics for the foreign asset and currency. These dynamics support calculating expectations of products and ratios of the asset and exchange rate, as well as higher moments by applying the same change-of-measure logic.
The worked derivation checks the result against the domestic martingale condition and gives the quanto forward, whose drift includes the correlation and volatility adjustment. It assumes constant deterministic interest rates and constant volatilities in a correlated lognormal setup. The presentation is a model-specific derivation; applying it elsewhere requires consistent exchange-rate conventions, measure definitions, and assumptions.
Key ideas
- The domestic measure can be obtained from the foreign measure through a density involving the exchange rate and cash accounts.
- Girsanov’s theorem shifts each Brownian motion according to its covariance with the exchange-rate driver.
- The domestic drift of a foreign asset includes a quanto adjustment determined by correlation and volatility.
- The worked expectation is checked against the martingale property of domestic-currency asset values.
- The derivation assumes deterministic rates and a correlated lognormal model.
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Full text
# Girsanov Theorem for Quanto/Compo adjustment
# Girsanov Theorem for Quanto/Compo adjustment
Assume that I have a foreign asset $$Y_t = Y_0 \exp \left((r_f-\frac{1}{2}\sigma^2_Y)t+\sigma_Y W_t^1\right)$$ and an exchange rate $$X_t = X_0 \exp\left((r_d-r_f-\frac{1}{2}\sigma^2_X)t+\sigma_X W_t^2\right)$$
I would like to compute the expectation of $Y_tX_t$ under the domestic rsik-neutral market measure. I know I would like to use Girsanov, but am not sure how to approach this.
My ultimate goal would then be to extend the workings to $Y_t^2 X_t $ or $X_t^2 Y_t$ or $X_t^2 Y_t^2$ etc. so this change of measure would be useful to me
## Answer by Quantuple (score 13, accepted)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/25800
Assume deterministic and constant interest rates.
For an investor in the foreign economy i.e. a market participant that can only trade assets delivering a payout in the foreign currency, let us define
$$ \tilde{X}_t = \tilde{X}_0 \exp \left(\left(r_f-r_d-\frac{\sigma_\tilde{X}^2}{2}\right)+\sigma_\tilde{X} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} \right) $$
$$ Y_t =Y_0\exp \left(\left(r_f-\frac{\sigma_Y^2}{2}\right)t+\sigma_Y W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^f} \right) $$ where
- $\mathbb{Q}^f$ figures the foreign risk-neutral measure (risk-free MMA $B^f_t = \exp(r_f\ t)$ is the numéraire).
- $\tilde{X}_t$ representing the instantaneous DOM/FOR exchange rate. $\tilde{X}_t = \text{x}$ means that, at time $t$, 1 unit of domestic currency equals $\text{x}$ units of foreign currency.
- $Y_t$ an equity underlying denominated in the foreign currency.
Let's further assume that the 2 Brownian motions $W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f}$ and $W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^f}$ are correlated $$ d\langle W^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f}, W^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^f} \rangle_t = \rho dt $$
Notice how I have used $\tilde{X}_t$ (DOM/FOR) and not $X_t$ (FOR/DOM) as you propose, because in the foreign economy, the only tradable assets are: $Y_t$, $B^f_t$ and $B^d_t \tilde{X}_t$ as hinted above (and these should be all $\mathbb{Q}^f$-martingales when expressed under the numéraire $B_t^f$). We do have the relationship, $\tilde{X}_t = 1/X_t $.
Thanks to the fundamental theorem of asset pricing, for any tradable asset $V_t$ denominated in the foreign currency, we have that, under the foreign risk-neutral measure $\mathbb{Q}^f$
$$ \frac{V_t}{B^f_t} \text{ is a } \mathbb{Q}^f \text{- martingale} \iff \frac{V_0}{B^f_0} = E^{\mathbb{Q}^f}_0 \left[ \frac{V_t}{B^f_t} \right] $$
Under the domestic risk-neutral measure $\mathbb{Q}^d$ (risk-free MMA $B^d_t = \exp(r_d\ t)$ is the numéraire)
$$ \frac{V_t/\tilde{X}_t}{B^d_t} \text{ is a } \mathbb{Q}^d \text{- martingale} \iff \frac{V_0/\tilde{X}_0}{B^d_0 } = E^{\mathbb{Q}^d}_0 \left[ \frac{V_t /\tilde{X}_t^d}{B^d_t} \right] $$ in words, the foreign asset value converted to domestic currency units is a martingale under the domestic risk-neutral measure.
From the above, we see that the Radon-Nikodym derivative writes $$ \left. \frac{d\mathbb{Q}^d}{d\mathbb{Q}^f} \right\vert_{\mathcal{F}_0} = \frac{B_0^f B_t^d \tilde{X}_t}{B_t^f B_0^d \tilde{X}_0} $$ yet because \begin{align} \tilde{X}_t &= \tilde{X}_0\exp \left(\left(r_f-r_d-\frac{1}{2}\sigma_\tilde{X}^2\right)t+\sigma_\tilde{X} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} \right) \\ &= \tilde{X}_0 \frac{B^f_t}{B^f_0}\frac{B^d_0}{B^d_t}\exp \left(-\frac{1}{2}\sigma_\tilde{X}^2t+\sigma_\tilde{X} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} \right) \end{align}
this deriative also writes \begin{align} \left. \frac{d\mathbb{Q}^d}{d\mathbb{Q}^f} \right\vert_{\mathcal{F}_0} &= \exp\left(\sigma_\tilde{X} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f}-\frac{1}{2}\sigma_\tilde{X}^2t\right) \\ &= \mathcal{E}\left(\sigma_\tilde{X} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} \right) \end{align} which is indeed a well-behaved Doléans-Dade exponential where we've used the notation $$\mathcal{E}(M_t) = \exp \left( M_t - \frac{1}{2}\langle M \rangle_t \right)$$ to denote the stochastic exponential.
Hence Girsanov theorem can be applied to transform Brownian motions under $\mathbb{Q}^f$ as Brownian motions under $\mathbb{Q}^d$. How does it work?
> Girsanov Theorem (non rigourous version) - Let $W_t^{\mathbb{Q^f}}$ represent a standard Brownian motion under $\mathbb{Q^f}$ and assume the Radon-Nikodym derivative can be written as: $$ \left. \frac{d\mathbb{Q}^d}{d\mathbb{Q}^f} \right\vert_{\mathcal{F}_0} = \mathcal{E}(L_t) $$ In that case, the process $W_t^{\mathbb{Q^d}}$ defined as $$ W_t^{\mathbb{Q^d}} = W_t^{\mathbb{Q^f}} - \langle W^{\mathbb{Q^f}}, L \rangle_t $$ is a standard a Brownian motion under $\mathbb{Q^d}$.
In our particular example, we see that $$L_t := \sigma_\tilde{X} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} $$
Applying Girsanov theorem then allows us to write \begin{align} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^d} &= W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} - \langle W^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f}, \sigma_\tilde{X} W^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} \rangle_t \\ &= W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} - \sigma_\tilde{X}t \\ W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^d} &= W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^f} - \langle W^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^f}, \sigma_\tilde{X} W^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} \rangle_t \\ &= W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^f} - \rho \sigma_\tilde{X} t \end{align} meaning that, to move from $\mathbb{Q}^f$ to $\mathbb{Q}^d$ one can just replace \begin{align} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^f} = W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^d} + \sigma_\tilde{X} t \\ W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^f} = W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^d} + \rho \sigma_\tilde{X} t \\ \end{align} in the expressions for $\tilde{X}_t$ and $Y_t$ to obtain: \begin{align} \tilde{X}_t = \tilde{X}_0 \exp \left(\left(r_f - r_d + \frac{\sigma_\tilde{X}^2}{2}\right) t + \sigma_\tilde{X} W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^d} \right) \\ Y_t = Y_0 \exp \left(\left(r_f + \rho \sigma_\tilde{X} \sigma_Y - \frac{\sigma_Y^2}{2}\right) t + \sigma_Y W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^d} \right) \end{align}
Now assume we want to compute the expectation of $Y_tX_t = Y_t/\tilde{X}_t$ under $\mathbb{Q}^d$. The random variable $Y_t/\tilde{X}_t$ being lognormally distributed (ratio of two lognormals) with mean $$ \mu = \ln(Y_0/\tilde{X}_0) + \left(r_d - \frac{\sigma^2_X - 2\rho\sigma_\tilde{X}\sigma_Y + \sigma_Y^2}{2}\right)t $$ and variance $$ \sigma^2 = \left(\sigma_\tilde{X}^2 - 2 \rho \sigma_\tilde{X} \sigma_Y + \sigma_Y^2 \right)t $$ applying the usual formula gives \begin{align} E^{\mathbb{Q}^d}[Y_t/\tilde{X}_t] &= \exp \left(\mu+\frac{\sigma^2}{2} \right) \\ &= Y_0/\tilde{X}_0 \exp \left(r_d t \right) \\ &= Y_0/\tilde{X}_0 B_t^d \end{align} hence $$ E^{\mathbb{Q}^d} \left[ \frac{Y_t/\tilde{X}_t}{B_t^d} \right] = \frac{Y_0/\tilde{X}_0}{B_0^d} $$ as it should since we already knew that $$ \frac{Y_t/\tilde{X}_t}{B^d_t} \text{ was a } \mathbb{Q}^d \text{- martingale} $$
For quanto derivatives we prefer to express the equity/forex dynamics in terms of $X_t$ the FOR/DOM exchange rate instead of the DOM/FOR exchange rate $\tilde{X}_t$. This can be done through a simple application of Itô's lemma noticing that $\tilde{X}_t = 1/X_t$. This would typically yield: \begin{align} \frac{dX_t}{X_t} = (r_d - r_f) dt + \sigma_X dW_t^{X,\mathbb{Q}^d} \\ \frac{dY_t}{Y_t} = (r_f - \rho_{XY}\sigma_X\sigma_Y) dt + \sigma_Y dW_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^d} \end{align} where we have introduced $$ W_t^{X,\mathbb{Q}^d} = -W_t^{\tilde{X},\mathbb{Q}^d} $$ such that $$ \langle W_t^{X,\mathbb{Q}^d}, W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^d} \rangle_t = \rho_{XY} t = -\rho t $$ and we used $\sigma_X = \sigma_{\tilde{X}}$ for clarity.
Hence finally, under $\mathbb{Q}^d$ we can write:
$$ X_t = X_0 \exp \left(\left(r_d-r_f-\frac{\sigma_X^2}{2}\right)+\sigma_X W_t^{X,\mathbb{Q}^d} \right) $$
$$ Y_t = Y_0\exp \left(\left(r_f - \rho_{XY}\sigma_X\sigma_Y -\frac{\sigma_Y^2}{2}\right)t + \sigma_Y W_t^{Y,\mathbb{Q}^d} \right) $$
where the quantity $$ F(0,t) = E^{\mathbb{Q}^d}_0 \left[ Y_t \right] = Y_0\exp \left(\left(r_f - \rho_{XY}\sigma_X\sigma_Y\right)t\right) $$ is known as the quanto forward.
and it is once again easy to show that $$ \frac{Y_tX_t}{B_t^d} \text{ is a } \mathbb{Q}^d \text{- martingale} $$ using the fact that $Z=Y_t X_t$ is a product of lognormals (and not a ratio as before)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.