Pricing Derivatives in a Regime Switching Market with Time Inhomogeneous Volatility

Abstract: This paper studies pricing derivatives in an age-dependent semi-Markov modulated market. We consider a financial market where the asset price dynamics follow a regime switching geometric Brownian motion model in which the coefficients depend on finitely many age-dependent semi-Markov processes. We further allow the volatility coefficient to depend on time explicitly. Under these market assumptions, we study locally risk minimizing pricing of a class of European options. It is shown that the price function can be obtained by solving a non-local B-S-M type PDE. We establish existence and uniqueness of a classical solution of the Cauchy problem. We also find another characterization of price function via a system of Volterra integral equation of second kind. This alternative representation leads to computationally efficient methods for finding price and hedging. Finally, we analyze the PDE to establish continuous dependence of the solution on the instantaneous transition rates of semi-Markov processes. An explicit expression of quadratic residual risk is also obtained.