Thu, 05 May 2016

16:00 - 17:30
L4

Quadratic BSDE systems and applications

Hao Xing
(London School of Economics)
Abstract

In this talk, we will establish existence and uniqueness for a wide class of Markovian systems of backward stochastic differential equations (BSDE) with quadratic nonlinearities. This class is characterized by an abstract structural assumption on the generator, an a-priori local-boundedness property, and a locally-H\"older-continuous terminal condition. We present easily verifiable sufficient conditions for these assumptions and treat several applications, including stochastic equilibria in incomplete financial markets, stochastic differential games, and martingales on Riemannian manifolds. This is a joint work with Gordan Zitkovic.

Thu, 28 Apr 2016

16:00 - 17:30
L4

Branching diffusion representation of semilinear PDEs and Monte Carlo approximation

Xiaolu Tan
(Paris Dauphine University)
Abstract

We provide a representation result of parabolic semi-linear PDEs, with polynomial nonlinearity, by branching diffusion processes. We extend the classical representation for KPP equations, introduced by Skorokhod (1964), Watanabe (1965) and McKean (1975), by allowing for polynomial nonlinearity in the pair (u,Du), where u is the solution of the PDE with space gradient Du. Similar to the previous literature, our result requires a non-explosion condition which restrict to "small maturity" or "small nonlinearity" of the PDE. Our main ingredient is the automatic differentiation technique as in Henry Labordere, Tan and Touzi (2015), based on the Malliavin integration by parts, which allows to account for the nonlinearities in the gradient. As a consequence, the particles of our branching diffusion are marked by the nature of the nonlinearity. This new representation has very important numerical implications as it is suitable for Monte Carlo simulation.

Fri, 17 Jun 2016

13:00 - 14:30
L3

Inferring the order of events

Harald Oberhauser
(Oxford University SAG)
Abstract

Mining massive amounts of sequentially ordered data and inferring structural properties is nowadays a standard task (in finance, etc). I will present some results that combine and extend ideas from rough paths and machine learning that allow to give a general non-parametric approach with strong theoretical guarantees. Joint works with F. Kiraly and T. Lyons.

Fri, 10 Jun 2016

13:00 - 14:30
L6

Time Inconsistency, Self Control and Portfolio Choice

Xunyu Zhou
(Mathematical Insitute, Oxford)
Abstract

Time inconsistency arises when one's preferences are not aligned
over time; thus time-inconsistent dynamic control is essentially
a self control problem. In this talk I will introduce several classes of time-inconsistent
dynamic optimisation problems together with their economic
motivations, and highlight the ways to address the time inconsistency.
I will then provide a solution to a continuous-time portfolio choice
model under the rank-dependent utility which is inherently time inconsistent.
Fri, 27 May 2016

13:00 - 14:30
L6

Deep Learning for Modeling Financial Data

Justin Sirignano, postdoc at Imperial College.
(Imperial College London)
Abstract
Deep learning has emerged as one of the forefront areas in machine learning, achieving major success in imaging, speech recognition, and natural language processing. We apply deep learning to two areas in finance: (1) mortgage delinquency and prepayment and (2) limit order books. Using datasets unprecedented in size, we show that deep neural networks outperform several status quo approaches. Due to the heavy computational cost from both the size of the models and the data, we use GPU clusters to train the models.
Fri, 20 May 2016

13:00 - 14:30
L6

Talks by Phd Students

Our Phd Students Wei Fang and Alexander Vervuurt
(Mathematical Insitute, Oxford)
Abstract

Wei Title: Adaptive timestep Methods for non-globally Lipschitz SDEs

Wei Abstract: Explicit Euler and Milstein methods are two common ways to simulate the numerical solutions of
SDEs for its computability and implementability, but they require global Lipschitz continuity on both
drift and diffusion coefficients. By assuming the boundedness of the p-th moments of exact solution
and numerical solution, strong convergence of the Euler-type schemes for locally Lipschitz drift has been
proved in [HMS02], including the implicit Euler method and the semi-implicit Euler method. However,
except for some special cases, implicit-type Euler method requires additional computational cost, which
is very inefficient in practice. Explicit Euler method then is shown to be divergent in [HJK11] for non-
Lipschitz drift. Explicit tamed Euler method proposed in [HJK + 12], shows the strong convergence for the
one-sided Lipschitz condition with at most polynomial growth and it is also extended to tamed Milstein
method in [WG13]. In this paper, we propose a new adaptive timestep Euler method, which shows the
strong convergence under locally Lipschitz drift and gains the standard convergence order under one-sided
Lipschitz condition with at most polynomial growth. Numerical experiments also demonstrate a better
performance of our scheme, especially for large initial value and high dimensions, by comparing the mean
square error with respect to the runtime. In addition, we extend this adaptive scheme to Milstein method
and get a higher order strong convergence with commutative noise.

 

Alexander Title: Functionally-generated portfolios and optimal transport

Alexander Abstract: I will showcase some ongoing research, in which I try to make links between the class of functionally-generated portfolios from Stochastic Portfolio Theory, and certain optimal transport problems.

Fri, 06 May 2016

13:00 - 14:30
L6

Some remarks on functionally generated portfolios

Johannes Ruf
(UCL)
Abstract

In the first part of the talk I will review Bob Fernholz' theory of functionally generated portfolios. In the second part I will discuss questions related to the existence of short-term arbitrage opportunities.
This is joint work with Bob Fernholz and Ioannis Karatzas

Thu, 03 Mar 2016
11:00
C5

'Additive extensions and Pell's equation in polynomials'.

H.Schmidt
(Oxford)
Abstract

We will discuss families of Pell's equation in polynomials 
with one complex parameter. In particular the relation between 
the generic equation and its specializations. Our emphasis will
be on families with a triple zero. Then additive extensions enter 
the picture. 

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