Sixth-Order Compact Differencing with Staggered Boundary Schemes and 3(2) Bogacki-Shampine Pairs for Pricing Free-Boundary Options

Abstract: We propose a stable sixth-order compact finite difference scheme with a dynamic fifth-order staggered boundary scheme and 3(2) R-K Bogacki and Shampine adaptive time stepping for pricing American style options. To locate, fix and compute the free-boundary simultaneously with option and delta sensitivity, we introduce a Landau transformation. Furthermore, we remove the convective term in the pricing model which could further introduce errors. Hence, an efficient sixth-order compact scheme can easily be implemented. The main challenge in coupling the sixth order compact scheme in discrete form is to efficiently account for the near-boundary scheme. In this work, we introduce novel fifth- and sixth-order Dirichlet near-boundary schemes suitable for solving our model. The optimal exercise boundary and other boundary values are approximated using a high-order analytical approximation obtained from a novel fifth-order staggered boundary scheme. Furthermore, we investigate the smoothness of the first and second derivatives of the optimal exercise boundary which is obtained from this high-order analytical approximation. Coupled with the 3(2) RK-Bogacki and Shampine time integration method, the interior values are then approximated using the sixth order compact operator. The expected convergence rate is obtained, and our present numerical scheme is very fast and gives highly accurate approximations with very coarse grids.