Arash Fahim

Arash Fahim, Wan-Yu Tsai

This paper concerns the numerical solution of a fully nonlinear parabolic double obstacle problem arising from a finite portfolio selection with proportional transaction costs. We consider the optimal allocation of wealth among multiple stocks and a bank account in order to maximize the finite horizon discounted utility of consumption. The problem is mainly governed by a time-dependent Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with gradient constraints. We propose a numerical method which is composed of Monte Carlo simulation to take advantage of the high-dimensional properties and finite difference method to approximate the gradients of the value function. Numerical results illustrate behaviors of the optimal trading strategies and also satisfy all qualitative properties proved in Dai et al. (2009) and Chen and Dai (2013).

Arash Fahim

We introduce a Monte Carlo scheme for fully nonlinear parabolic nonlocal PDE's whose nonlinearity in of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs (HJBI for short). We avoid the difficulties of infinite Lévy measure by truncation of the Lévy integral. The first result provides the convergence of the scheme for general parabolic nonlinearities. The second result provides bounds on the rate of convergence for concave (or equivalently convex) nonlinearities. For both results, it is crucial to choose truncation of the infinite Lévy measure appropriately dependent on the time discretization. We also introduce a Monte Carlo Quadrature method to approximate the nonlocal term in the HJBI nonlinearity.

Silei Song, Arash Fahim, Michael Mascagni

Solving elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs) is a fundamental step in various scientific and engineering studies. As a classic stochastic solver, the Walk-on-Spheres (WoS) method is a well-established and efficient algorithm that provides accurate local estimates for PDEs. In this paper, by integrating machine learning techniques with WoS and space discretization approaches, we develop a novel stochastic solver, WoS-NN. This new method solves elliptic problems with Dirichlet boundary conditions, facilitating precise and rapid global solutions and gradient approximations. The method inherits excellent characteristics from the original WoS method, such as being meshless and robust to irregular regions. By integrating neural networks, WoS-NN also gives instant local predictions after training without re-sampling, which is especially suitable for intense requests on a static region. A typical experimental result demonstrates that the proposed WoS-NN method provides accurate field estimations, reducing errors by around $75\%$ while using only $8\%$ of path samples compared to the conventional WoS method, which saves abundant computational time and resource consumption.

Arash Fahim, Nizar Touzi, Xavier Warin

We consider the probabilistic numerical scheme for fully nonlinear PDEs suggested in \cite{cstv}, and show that it can be introduced naturally as a combination of Monte Carlo and finite differences scheme without appealing to the theory of backward stochastic differential equations. Our first main result provides the convergence of the discrete-time approximation and derives a bound on the discretization error in terms of the time step. An explicit implementable scheme requires to approximate the conditional expectation operators involved in the discretization. This induces a further Monte Carlo error. Our second main result is to prove the convergence of the latter approximation scheme, and to derive an upper bound on the approximation error. Numerical experiments are performed for the approximation of the solution of the mean curvature flow equation in dimensions two and three, and for two and five-dimensional (plus time) fully-nonlinear Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations arising in the theory of portfolio optimization in financial mathematics.