This article defines and studies a stochastic process that combines two important stylized facts of financial data: reversion to the mean, and a flexible generalized stochastic volatility process: the 4/2 process. This work is motivated by the modeling of at least two financial asset classes: commodities and volatility indexes. We provide analytical expressions for the conditional characteristic functions and closed-form approximations to relevant cases, in particular a mean-reverting Heston stochastic volatility model. Our results describe feasible changes of measure with the final aim of pricing financial derivatives. The empirical analysis and the estimation methodology confirm the need of such a model in several examples from the targeted asset classes. Applications to option pricing corroborate the substantial impact on the implied volatility surfaces of the new parameters.

No abstract

This paper proposes and investigates a multivariate 4/2 Factor Model. The name 4/2 comes from the superposition of a CIR term and a 3/2-model component. Our model goes multidimensional along the lines of a principal component and factor covariance decomposition. We find conditions for well-defined changes of measure and we also find two key characteristic functions in closed-form, which help with pricing and risk measure calculations. In a numerical example, we demonstrate the significant impact of the newly added 3/2 component (parameter b) and the common factor (a), both with respect to changes on the implied volatility surface (up to 100%) and on two risk measures: value at risk and expected shortfall where an increase of up to 29% was detected.

No abstract

No abstract