Deep hedging of long-term financial derivatives

This study presents a deep reinforcement learning approach for global hedging of long-term financial derivatives. A similar setup as in Coleman et al. (2007) is considered with the risk management of lookback options embedded in guarantees of variable annuities with ratchet features. The deep hedgin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Insurance, mathematics & economics mathematics & economics, 2021-07, Vol.99, p.327-340
Main Author: Carbonneau, Alexandre
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Annuities
Cognitive style
Derivatives
Financial market
Fines & penalties
Global hedging
Hedging
Jump risk
Lookback option
Machine learning
Mathematical analysis
Monte Carlo simulation
Neural networks
Penalties
Policies
Reinforcement
Reinforcement learning
Risk assessment
Risk factors
Risk management
Variable annuity
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Summary:This study presents a deep reinforcement learning approach for global hedging of long-term financial derivatives. A similar setup as in Coleman et al. (2007) is considered with the risk management of lookback options embedded in guarantees of variable annuities with ratchet features. The deep hedging algorithm of Buehler et al. (2019a) is applied to optimize neural networks representing global hedging policies with both quadratic and non-quadratic penalties. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper that presents an extensive benchmarking of global policies for long-term contingent claims with the use of various hedging instruments (e.g. underlying and standard options) and with the presence of jump risk for equity. Monte Carlo experiments demonstrate the vast superiority of non-quadratic global hedging as it results simultaneously in downside risk metrics two to three times smaller than best benchmarks and in significant hedging gains. Analyses show that the neural networks are able to effectively adapt their hedging decisions to different penalties and stylized facts of risky asset dynamics only by experiencing simulations of the financial market exhibiting these features. Numerical results also indicate that non-quadratic global policies are significantly more geared towards being long equity risk which entails earning the equity risk premium.
ISSN:0167-6687
1873-5959
DOI:10.1016/j.insmatheco.2021.03.017