Generalised geometric Brownian motion: Theory and applications to option pricing

Abstract

Classical option pricing schemes assume that the value of a financial asset follows a geometric Brownian motion (GBM). However, a growing body of studies suggest that a simple GBM trajectory is not an adequate representation for asset dynamics due to irregularities found when comparing its properties with empirical distributions. As a solution, we develop a generalisation of GBM where the introduction of a memory kernel critically determines the behavior of the stochastic process. We find the general expressions for the moments, log-moments, and the expectation of the periodic log returns, and obtain the corresponding probability density functions by using the subordination approach. Particularly, we consider subdiffusive GBM (sGBM), tempered sGBM, a mix of GBM and sGBM, and a mix of sGBMs. We utilise the resulting generalised GBM (gGBM) to examine the empirical performance of a selected group of kernels in the pricing of European call options. Our results indicate that the performance of a kernel ultimately depends on the maturity of the option and its moneyness.