Abstract:We study the problem of obtaining accurate estimates of the parameters,of the initial stochastic variances and of the risk premium parameteres of the risk neutral measure of some stochastic volatility models used in mathematical finance from the observations at discrete times of the asset log return and of the prices of European call and put options on the asset.The models considered include the Heston stochastic volatility model and its generalizations.This problem is an inverse problem for a stochastic dynamical system known in the literature as calibration problem.We formulate the calibration problem as a constrained optimization problem where the objective function is the logarithm of the likelihood associated to the parameters,the initial stochastic variances and the risk premium parameters of the model studied.The expression of the likelihood function contains the solution of a filtering problem.Form the solution of the calibration problem and of the associated filtering problem we derive a tracking procedure that is able to forecast prices for time values where data are not available.We make numerical experiments with synthetic data and with real data.The real data considered are those relative to the S&P500 index in the year 2005 and some electric power price data taken from the U.S. market.In particular we compare forecasted prices obtained with the tracking procedure mentioned previously with prices actually observed. The results obtained are very satisfactory.
    Some auxiliary material useful to understand this work including some animations can be found in the websites:
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http://www.econ.univpm.it/recchioni/finance/w9
A more general reference to the work of the author and of its coauthors in mathematical finance is the website:
http://www.econ.univpm.it/recchioni/finance