L6

This talk will discuss efficient numerical methods for estimating the
probability of a large portfolio loss, and associated risk measures such
as VaR and CVaR.  These involve nested expectations, and following
Bujok, Hambly & Reisinger (2015) we use the number of samples for the
inner conditional expectation as the key approximation parameter in the
Multilevel Monte Carlo formulation.  The main difference in this case is
the indicator function in the definition of the probability. Here we
build on previous work by Gordy & Juneja (2010) who analyse the use of a
fixed number of inner samples , and Broadie, Du & Moallemi (2011) who
develop and analyse an adaptive algorithm.  I will present the
algorithm, outline the main theoretical results and give the numerical
results for a representative model problem.  I will also discuss the
extension to real portfolios with a large number of options based on
multiple underlying assets.

Joint work with Abdul-Lateef Haji-Ali

In the 12 months from the middle of June 2016 to the middle of June 2017, a number of events occurred in a relatively short period of time, all of which either had, or had the potential to have,  a considerably volatile impact upon financial markets. The events referred to here are the Brexit  referendum (23 June 2016), the US election (8 November 2016), the 2017 French elections (23 April and 7 May 2017) and the surprise 2017 UK parliamentary election (8 June 2017). 
All of these events - the Brexit referendum and the Trump election in particular - were notable both for their impact upon financial markets after the event and the degree to which the markets failed to anticipate these events. A natural question to ask is whether these could have been predicted, given information freely available in the financial markets beforehand. In this talk, we focus on market expectations for price action around Brexit and the Trump election, based on information available in the traded foreign exchange options market. We also investigate the horizon date of 30 March 2019, when the two year time window that started with the Article 50 notification on 29 March 2017 will terminate.
Mathematically, we construct a mixture model corresponding to two scenarios for the GBPUSD exchange rate after the referendum vote, one scenario for “remain” and one for “leave”. Calibrating this model to four months of market data, from 24 February to 22 June 2016, we find that a “leave” vote was associated with a predicted devaluation of the British pound to approximately 1.37 USD per GBP, a 4.5% devaluation, and quite consistent with the observed post-referendum exchange rate move down from 1.4877 to 1.3622. We find similar predictive power for USDMXN in the case of the 2016 US presidential election. We argue that we can apply the same bimodal mixture model technique to construct two states of the world corresponding to soft Brexit (continued access to the single market) and hard Brexit (failure of negotiations in this regard).
 

The bipolar filtration of Cochran, Harvey and Horn initiated the study of deeper structures of the smooth concordance group of the topologically slice knots. We show that the graded quotient of the bipolar filtration has infinite rank at each stage greater than one. To detect nontrivial elements in the quotient, the proof uses higher order amenable Cheeger-Gromov $L^2$ $\rho$-invariants and infinitely many Heegaard Floer correction term $d$-invariants simultaneously. This is joint work with Jae Choon Cha.

Developments in geometry and low dimensional topology have given renewed vigour to the following classical question: to what extent do the finite images of a finitely presented group determine the group? I'll survey what we know about this question in the context of 3-manifolds, and I shall present recent joint work with McReynolds, Reid and Spitler showing that the fundamental groups of certain hyperbolic orbifolds are distingusihed from all other finitely generated groups by their finite quotients.

The cyclic surgery theorem of Culler, Gordon, Luecke, and Shalen implies that any knot in S^3 other than a torus knot has at most two nontrivial cyclic surgeries. In this talk, we investigate the weaker notion of SU(2)-cyclic surgeries on a knot, meaning surgeries whose fundamental groups only admit SU(2) representations with cyclic image. By studying the image of the SU(2) character variety of a knot in the “pillowcase”, we will show that if it has infinitely many SU(2)-cyclic surgeries, then the corresponding slopes (viewed as a subset of RP^1) have a unique limit point, which is a finite, rational number, and that this limit is a boundary slope for the knot. As a corollary, it follows that for any nontrivial knot, the set of SU(2)-cyclic surgery slopes is bounded. This is joint work with Raphael Zentner.

I will talk about the diffeomorphism classification of 4-manifolds up to 
connected sums with the complex projective plane, and how the resulting 
equivalence class of a manifold can be detected by algebraic topological 
invariants of the manifold.  I may also discuss related results when one 
takes connected sums with another favourite 4-manifold, S^2 x S^2, instead.

The Monster Lie algebra m, which admits an action of the Monster finite simple group M, was constructed by Borcherds as part of his program to solve the Conway-Norton conjecture about the representation theory of M. We associate the analog of a Lie group G(m) to the Monster Lie algebra m. We give generators for large free subgroups and we describe relations in G(m).