Consider a frictionless market trading a finite number of co-maturing European call and put options written on a risky asset plus an instrument with path-dependent payoff known as a weighted variance swap, e. g. a vanilla variance swap or a corridor variance swap. The question we ask is: Do the traded prices admit an arbitrage opportunity? We determine necessary and sufficient model-free conditions for the price of a continuously monitored weighted variance swap to be consistent with absence of arbitrage. We discuss in detail the types of arbitrage that may arise when the determined conditions are not satisfied. In particular we find that prices of European call/puts are not enough for the upper bound price of the vanilla variance swap to be finite. We show that given an extra piece of information, namely the price of an additional asset, a finite bound can be explicitly determined .
We develop robust pricing and hedging of a weighted variance swap when market prices for a finite number of co--maturing put options are given. We assume the given prices do not admit arbitrage and deduce no-arbitrage bounds on the weighted variance swap along with super- and sub- replicating strategies which enforce them. We find that market quotes for variance swaps are surprisingly close to the model-free lower bounds we determine. We solve the problem by transforming it into an analogous question for a European option with a convex payoff. The lower bound becomes a problem in semi-infinite linear programming which we solve in detail. The upper bound is explicit. We work in a model-independent and probability-free setup. In particular we use and extend F\"ollmer's pathwise stochastic calculus. Appropriate notions of arbitrage and admissibility are introduced. This allows us to establish the usual hedging relation between the variance swap and the 'log contract' and similar connections for weighted variance swaps. Our results take form of a FTAP: we show that the absence of (weak) arbitrage is equivalent to the existence of a classical model which reproduces the observed prices via risk-neutral expectations of discounted payoffs .
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Consider a frictionless market trading
We develop robust pricing and hedging of a weighted variance swap when market prices for
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co-maturing European call and put options written on a risky asset plus an instrument with path-dependent payoff known as a weighted variance swap, e. g. a vanilla variance swap or a corridor variance swap. The question we ask is: Do the traded prices admit an arbitrage opportunity? We determine necessary and sufficient model-free conditions for the price of a continuously monitored
co--maturing put options are given. We assume the given prices do not admit arbitrage and deduce no-arbitrage bounds on the
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to be consistent with absence of arbitrage. We discuss in detail the types of arbitrage that may arise when the determined conditions are not satisfied.
along with super- and sub- replicating strategies which enforce them. We find that market quotes for variance swaps are surprisingly close to the model-free lower bounds we determine. We solve the problem by transforming it into an analogous question for a European option with a convex payoff. The lower bound becomes a problem in semi-infinite linear programming which we solve in detail. The upper bound is explicit. We work in a model-independent and probability-free setup.
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find that prices of European call/puts are not enough for the upper bound price of the vanilla variance swap to be finite. We show that given an extra piece of information, namely the price of an additional asset, a finite bound can be explicitly determined
use and extend F\"ollmer's pathwise stochastic calculus. Appropriate notions of arbitrage and admissibility are introduced. This allows us to establish the usual hedging relation between the variance swap and the 'log contract' and similar connections for weighted variance swaps. Our results take form of a FTAP: we show that the absence of (weak) arbitrage is equivalent to the existence of a classical model which reproduces the observed prices via risk-neutral expectations of discounted payoffs