Neural networks have been used as a nonparametric method for option pricing and hedging since the early 1990s. Far over a hundred papers have been published on this topic. This note intends to provide a comprehensive review. Papers are compared in terms of input features, output variables, benchmark models, performance measures, data partition methods, and underlying assets. Furthermore, related work and regularisation techniques are discussed.

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Neural networks have been used as a nonparametric method for option pricing and hedging since the early 1990s. Far over a hundred papers have been published on this topic. This note intends to provide a comprehensive review. Papers are compared in terms of input features, output variables, benchmark models, performance measures, data partition methods, and underlying assets. Furthermore, related work and regularisation techniques are discussed. Let us explain how to read Table 1. It summarises six relevant characteristics that describe how each paper treats the pricing/hedging problem. The columns 'Features' and 'Outputs' show explanatory featuresWe thank Marc Chataigner, Stéphane Crépey, Antoine Jacquier, and Martin Larsson for comments on an early version of this note. 1 Hahn [2013] also surveys the use of ANNs to predict realised volatility. Here we do not aim to do so.

We study neural networks as nonparametric estimation tools for the hedging of options. To this end, we design a network, named HedgeNet, that directly outputs a hedging strategy. This network is trained to minimize the hedging error instead of the pricing error. Applied to end-of-day and tick prices of S&P 500 and Euro Stoxx 50 options, the network is able to reduce the mean squared hedging error of the Black-Scholes benchmark significantly. However, a similar benefit arises by simple linear regressions that incorporate the leverage effect.