Malliavin Calculus

Myopic Optimality: why reinforcement learning portfolio management strategies lose money ArXiv ID: 2509.12764 “View on arXiv” Authors: Yuming Ma Abstract Myopic optimization (MO) outperforms reinforcement learning (RL) in portfolio management: RL yields lower or negative returns, higher variance, larger costs, heavier CVaR, lower profitability, and greater model risk. We model execution/liquidation frictions with mark-to-market accounting. Using Malliavin calculus (Clark-Ocone/BEL), we derive policy gradients and risk shadow price, unifying HJB and KKT. This gives dual gap and convergence results: geometric MO vs. RL floors. We quantify phantom profit in RL via Malliavin policy-gradient contamination analysis and define a control-affects-dynamics (CAD) premium of RL indicating plausibly positive. ...

Numerical analysis on locally risk-minimizing strategies for Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard models ArXiv ID: 2505.00255 “View on arXiv” Authors: Takuji Arai Abstract We develop a numerical method for locally risk-minimizing (LRM) strategies for Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard (BNS) models. Arai et al. (2017) derived a mathematical expression for LRM strategies in BNS models using Malliavin calculus for Lévy processes and presented some numerical results only for the case where the asset price process is a martingale. Subsequently, Arai and Imai (2024) developed the first Monte Carlo (MC) method available for non-martingale BNS models with infinite active jumps. Here, we modify the expression obtained by Arai et al. (2017) into a numerically tractable form, and, using the MC method developed by Arai and Imai (2024), propose a numerical method of LRM strategies available for non-martingale BNS models with infinite active jumps. In the final part of this paper, we will conduct some numerical experiments. ...

Optimal reinsurance and investment via stochastic projected gradient method based on Malliavin calculus ArXiv ID: 2411.05417 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract This paper proposes a new approach using the stochastic projected gradient method and Malliavin calculus for optimal reinsurance and investment strategies. Unlike traditional methodologies, we aim to optimize static investment and reinsurance strategies by directly minimizing the ruin probability. Furthermore, we provide a convergence analysis of the stochastic projected gradient method for general constrained optimization problems whose objective function has Hölder continuous gradient. Numerical experiments show the effectiveness of our proposed method. ...

A forward differential deep learning-based algorithm for solving high-dimensional nonlinear backward stochastic differential equations ArXiv ID: 2408.05620 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract In this work, we present a novel forward differential deep learning-based algorithm for solving high-dimensional nonlinear backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs). Motivated by the fact that differential deep learning can efficiently approximate the labels and their derivatives with respect to inputs, we transform the BSDE problem into a differential deep learning problem. This is done by leveraging Malliavin calculus, resulting in a system of BSDEs. The unknown solution of the BSDE system is a triple of processes $(Y, Z, Γ)$, representing the solution, its gradient, and the Hessian matrix. The main idea of our algorithm is to discretize the integrals using the Euler-Maruyama method and approximate the unknown discrete solution triple using three deep neural networks. The parameters of these networks are then optimized by globally minimizing a differential learning loss function, which is novelty defined as a weighted sum of the dynamics of the discretized system of BSDEs. Through various high-dimensional examples, we demonstrate that our proposed scheme is more efficient in terms of accuracy and computation time compared to other contemporary forward deep learning-based methodologies. ...

A backward differential deep learning-based algorithm for solving high-dimensional nonlinear backward stochastic differential equations ArXiv ID: 2404.08456 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract In this work, we propose a novel backward differential deep learning-based algorithm for solving high-dimensional nonlinear backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs), where the deep neural network (DNN) models are trained not only on the inputs and labels but also the differentials of the corresponding labels. This is motivated by the fact that differential deep learning can provide an efficient approximation of the labels and their derivatives with respect to inputs. The BSDEs are reformulated as differential deep learning problems by using Malliavin calculus. The Malliavin derivatives of solution to a BSDE satisfy themselves another BSDE, resulting thus in a system of BSDEs. Such formulation requires the estimation of the solution, its gradient, and the Hessian matrix, represented by the triple of processes $\left(Y, Z, Γ\right).$ All the integrals within this system are discretized by using the Euler-Maruyama method. Subsequently, DNNs are employed to approximate the triple of these unknown processes. The DNN parameters are backwardly optimized at each time step by minimizing a differential learning type loss function, which is defined as a weighted sum of the dynamics of the discretized BSDE system, with the first term providing the dynamics of the process $Y$ and the other the process $Z$. An error analysis is carried out to show the convergence of the proposed algorithm. Various numerical experiments up to $50$ dimensions are provided to demonstrate the high efficiency. Both theoretically and numerically, it is demonstrated that our proposed scheme is more efficient compared to other contemporary deep learning-based methodologies, especially in the computation of the process $Γ$. ...