for the value of a European put or call option, or an American call option with zero dividend . In equation (1) is time, is the stock price, is the exercise price, is the risk free interest rate, is the continuous dividend, and is the stock volatility. The parameter , and may be either constant, or functions of time. In the latter case their average instantaneous values over the remaining life of the option should be provided to d03ndc. An auxiliary function d03nec is available to compute such averages from values at a set of discrete times. Equation (1) is subject to different boundary conditions depending on the type of option. For a call option the boundary condition is
where is the maturity time of the option. For a put option the equation (1) is subject to
d03ndc also returns values of the Greeks
s30abc also computes the European option price given by the Black–Scholes–Merton formula together with a more comprehensive set of sensitivities (Greeks).
Further details of the analytic solution returned are given in Section 9.1.
4References
Hull J (1989) Options, Futures and Other Derivative Securities Prentice–Hall
Wilmott P, Howison S and Dewynne J (1995) The Mathematics of Financial Derivatives Cambridge University Press
5Arguments
1: – Nag_OptionTypeInput
On entry: specifies the kind of option to be valued:
A European call option.
An American call option.
A European put option.
Constraints:
, or ;
if , .
2: – doubleInput
On entry: the exercise price .
Constraint:
.
3: – doubleInput
On entry: the stock price at which the option value and the Greeks should be evaluated.
Constraint:
.
4: – doubleInput
On entry: the time at which the option value and the Greeks should be evaluated.
Constraint:
.
5: – doubleInput
On entry: the maturity time of the option.
Constraint:
.
6: – const Nag_BooleanInput
On entry: specifies whether or not various arguments are time-dependent. More precisely, is time-dependent if and constant otherwise. Similarly, specifies whether is time-dependent and specifies whether is time-dependent.
7: – const doubleInput
Note: the dimension, dim, of the array r
must be at least
when ;
otherwise.
On entry: if then must contain the constant value of . The remaining elements need not be set.
If then must contain the value of at time t and must contain its average instantaneous value over the remaining life of the option:
The auxiliary function d03nec may be used to construct r from a set of values of at discrete times.
8: – const doubleInput
Note: the dimension, dim, of the array q
must be at least
when ;
otherwise.
On entry: if then must contain the constant value of . The remaining elements need not be set.
If then must contain the constant value of and must contain its average instantaneous value over the remaining life of the option:
The auxiliary function d03nec may be used to construct q from a set of values of at discrete times.
9: – const doubleInput
Note: the dimension, dim, of the array sigma
must be at least
when ;
otherwise.
On entry: if then must contain the constant value of . The remaining elements need not be set.
If then must contain the value of at time t, the average instantaneous value , and the second-order average , where:
The auxiliary function d03nec may be used to compute sigma from a set of values at discrete times.
Constraints:
if , ;
if ,
, for .
10: – double *Output
On exit: the value of the option at the stock price s and time t.
11: – double *Output
12: – double *Output
13: – double *Output
14: – double *Output
15: – double *Output
On exit: the values of various Greeks at the stock price s and time t, as follows:
16: – NagError *Input/Output
The NAG error argument (see Section 7 in the Introduction to the NAG Library CL Interface).
6Error Indicators and Warnings
NE_ALLOC_FAIL
Dynamic memory allocation failed.
See Section 3.1.2 in the Introduction to the NAG Library CL Interface for further information.
NE_BAD_PARAM
On entry, argument had an illegal value.
NE_INCOMPAT_PARAM
On entry, is not equal to with American call option.
.
On entry, .
Constraint: .
NE_INTERNAL_ERROR
An internal error has occurred in this function. Check the function call and any array sizes. If the call is correct then please contact NAG for assistance.
See Section 7.5 in the Introduction to the NAG Library CL Interface for further information.
NE_NO_LICENCE
Your licence key may have expired or may not have been installed correctly.
See Section 8 in the Introduction to the NAG Library CL Interface for further information.
NE_REAL
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
NE_REAL_2
On entry, and .
Constraint: .
7Accuracy
Given accurate values of r, q and sigma no further approximations are made in the evaluation of the Black–Scholes analytic formulae, and the results should, therefore, be within machine accuracy. The values of r, q and sigma returned from d03nec are exact for polynomials of degree up to .
8Parallelism and Performance
d03ndc is not threaded in any implementation.
9Further Comments
9.1Algorithmic Details
The Black–Scholes analytic formulae are used to compute the solution. For a European call option these are as follows:
where
is the cumulative Normal distribution function and is its derivative
The functions , , and are average values of , and over the time to maturity:
The Greeks are then calculated as follows:
Note: that is obtained from substitution of other Greeks in the Black–Scholes partial differential equation, rather than differentiation of . The values of , and appearing in its definition are the instantaneous values, not the averages. Note also that both the first-order average and the second-order average appear in the expression for . This results from the fact that is the derivative of with respect to , not .
For a European put option the equivalent equations are:
The analytic solution for an American call option with is identical to that for a European call, since early exercise is never optimal in this case. For all other cases no analytic solution is known.
10Example
This example solves the Black–Scholes equation for valuation of a -month American call option on a non-dividend-paying stock with an exercise price of $. The risk-free interest rate is 10% per annum, and the stock volatility is 40% per annum.
The option is valued at a range of times and stock prices.