Stochastic integration 2014-2015
(code ST409018)

Contents

Stochastic calculus is an indispensable tool in modern financial mathematics. In this course we present this mathematical theory. We treat the following topics from martingale theory and stochastic calculus: martingales in discrete and continuous time, construction and properties of the stochastic integral, Itô's formula, Girsanov's theorem, stochastic differential equations and we will briefly explain their relevance for mathematical finance.

Prerequisites

Measure theory, stochastic processes at the level of the course Measure Theoretic Probability

Literature

Recommended background reading: I. Karatzas and S.E. Shreve, Brownian motions and stochastic calculus and D. Revuz and M. Yor, Continuous martingales and Brownian motion. The contents of the course are described in the (based on these books) lecture notes.

Until 31 July 2015 Springer Verlag holds its Yellow Sale with many mathematics books at low prices.

Companion course

Students are recommended to take also the course on Stochastic Processes, see the Spring Courses of the Dutch Master Program in Mathematics.

Follow up courses

A course that heavily relies on stochastic calculus is Interest rate models (the webpage a bit outdated, but still fine for a first impression).

Lecturers

Peter Spreij

Homework

Strict deadlines: the lecture after you have been given the assignment, although serious excuses will always be accepted. You are allowed to work in pairs (a pair means 2 persons, not 3 or more), in which case one set of solutions should be handed in.

Schedule

Spring semester: First lecture on Thursday 5 February 2015, 11:00-13:00. February 12 in A1.08. Further lectures in G2.04 (Science Park), but see also datanose.nl for up to date information. From April 2 on, the locations are as follows. April 2: G3.02, April 9: D1.116, April 16: A1.08, April 23: D1.116, April 30 D1.113, May 7: D1.116. See the map of Science Park and the travel directions (in Dutch only). Last lecture on May 7.

Examination

The final grade is a combination of the results of the take home assignments and the oral exam. To take the oral exam, you make an appointment for a date that suits your own agenda. If it happens that you'd like to postpone the appointment, just inform us that you want so. This is never a problem! The only important matter is that you take the exam, when you feel ready for it. What do you have to know? The theory, i.e. all important definitions and results (lemma's, theorems, etc.). Optional: you may prepare three theorems together with their proofs. You select your favorite ones! Criteria to consider: they should be interesting, non-trivial and explainable in a reasonably short time span. You will be asked to present two of them. Unavailable periods will appear here.

Registration

The UvA now wants all participants to be registered four weeks before the start of the course. If you missed this deadline you can use the late registration form. Note that a UvAnetID is required, so at least you have to be registered as a UvA student.


Programme

(regularly updated, )

1 Lecture: Sections 1 and 2.1.
Homework: Exercises 1.4, 1.5, 1.8, 1.14
2 Lecture: most of Section 2.2, Section 2.3: definitions, Lemma 2.15, proof of uniqueness of DM decomposition, Theorem 2.17 mentioned and Proposition 2.18.
Homework: Make yourself familiar with the contents of (Appendix) Sections B and D; just the big picture, no details. Make Exercises 2.1, 2.3 (joker exercise), 2.5, 2.10.
3 Lecture: Remainder of Chapter 2 (proof of existence of DM decomposition, Proposition 2.18), introductory remarks on Chapter 3.
Homework: make Exercises 2.7, 2.8, 2.13, and (joker exercise) 2.16.
4 Lecture: Chapters 3 and 4. plus initial notation from Chapter 5.
Homework: Exercises 3.3 (a,b,c), 3.9, 4.3
5 Lecture: Chapter 5 and quick introduction to Chapter 6
Homework: Exercises 4.10, 5.1, 5.2
6 Lecture: Most of Sections 6.1, 6.2
Homework: Read (optional, just needed in the proof of the Kunita-Watanabe inequality) Sections 6.3 and 6.9 of the MTP lecture notes; also look at the proof of this inequality. Make 6.1, 6.6, 6.9.
7 Lecture: Sections 6.2 (remaining parts), 6.3, 7.1
Homework: Make exercises 6.8, 6.10, 6.11
8 Lecture: Sections 7.2, 7.3, 7.4
Homework: (plan) Read the first example of a local martingale that is not a martingale and make Exercises 7.1, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6 (restrict yourself to f twice continuously differentiable in both variables and depart from the formula in Remark 7.12).
9 Lecture: Section 8
Homework: Read also the parts of section 8 that I skipped, look at exercise 8.1 (it tells you why the ordinary Brownian filtration is not right-continuous) and make exercises 8.2, 8.3 (only for t < T), 8.6 (optional). To be prepared for next week, read the lecture notes on the Radon Nikodym theorem (mainly the introduction and the statement of the theorem).
10 Lecture: Sections 9.1 - 9.3, 'Kazamaki' in Section 9.4
Homework: Make exercises 9.4, 9.6, 9.8, 9.9
11 Lecture: Remainder of Section 9.4 , Sections 10 and 10.1 up to Theorem 10.2
Homework: Make exercises 9.5, 9.12, 10.7.
12 Lecture: Most of Sections 10.1 (remainder) and 10.2
Homework: Make exercises 10.4, 10.12, 10.16; read Proposition 10.3 and the second example of a local martingale that is not a martingale.
13 Lecture: Sections 10.3, 11.1 (without the proof of Theorem 11.2)
Homework: 11.1, 11.3, 11.4


To the Korteweg-de Vries Instituut voor Wiskunde or to the homepage of the master's programme in Stochastics and Financial Mathematics.