Explicit Heston Solutions and Stochastic Approximation for Path-dependent Option Pricing

Abstract: New simulation approaches to evaluating path-dependent options without matrix inversion issues nor Euler bias are evaluated. They employ three main contributions: Stochastic approximation replaces regression in the LSM algorithm; Explicit weak solutions to stochastic differential equations are developed and applied to Heston model simulation; and Importance sampling expands these explicit solutions. The approach complements Heston (1993) and Broadie and Kaya (2006) by handling the case of path-dependence in the option's execution strategy. Numeric comparison against standard Monte Carlo methods demonstrate up to two orders of magnitude speed improvement. The general ideas will extend beyond the important Heston setting.