Pricing and hedging American-style options with deep learning

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Pricing and hedging American-style options with deep learning

Sebastian Becker
Patrick Cheridito
Arnulf Jentzen
Published on 12/23/2019
Options
Derivatives
Deep learning
Machine learning
Risk management

This paper presents a deep learning framework for pricing and hedging American-style options. The method first uses neural networks to approximate continuation values via a variant of the Longstaff-Schwartz algorithm, yielding a candidate optimal stopping strategy. This strategy provides a lower price bound through Monte Carlo simulation. An upper bound is then derived using the dual martingale representation, with nested simulation ensuring unbiasedness. A point estimate and confidence intervals are constructed from the bounds. Finally, the learned continuation values are used to train dynamic hedging strategies by minimizing mean squared replication error, either for the period until the first exercise date or for the entire option lifetime. The approach is tested on Bermudan max-call options under geometric Brownian motion with varying dimensions and parameters. Results show highly accurate price estimates and hedging strategies with near-zero average errors and small shortfalls, demonstrating the method's effectiveness even in high-dimensional settings.

Highlights

  • 1Introduces a deep learning method for pricing and hedging American-style options using neural networks to approximate continuation values.
  • 2Provides both lower and upper price bounds via Monte Carlo simulation and dual martingale approach, yielding confidence intervals.
  • 3Constructs approximate dynamic hedging strategies with small replication errors by leveraging learned continuation values.
  • 4Demonstrates high accuracy on Bermudan max-call options across various dimensions and parameters.

Methods

  • M
    Neural network regression (feedforward with tanh activation) to estimate continuation values in a Longstaff-Schwartz style algorithm.
  • M
    Dual martingale method to compute upper price bounds using nested simulation.
  • M
    Mean squared error minimization to train hedging strategies, either until first exercise date or until exercise time.

Results

  • R
    Accurate lower and upper price bounds with tight confidence intervals for Bermudan max-call options.
  • R
    Dynamic hedging strategies achieve average hedging errors close to zero and small hedging shortfalls.
  • R
    Method scales to high dimensions (e.g., d=100) with stable performance.
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