Dan Pirjol, Lingjiong Zhu
We consider the stochastic volatility model $dS_t = σ_t S_t dW_t,dσ_t = ωσ_t dZ_t$, with $(W_t,Z_t)$ uncorrelated standard Brownian motions. This is a special case of the Hull-White and the $β=1$ (log-normal) SABR model, which are widely used in financial practice. We study the properties of this model, discretized in time under several applications of the Euler-Maruyama scheme, and point out that the resulting model has certain properties which are different from those of the continuous time model. We study the asymptotics of the time-discretized model in the $n\to \infty$ limit of a very large number of time steps of size $τ$, at fixed $β=\frac12ω^2τn^2$ and $ρ=σ_0^2τ$, and derive three results: i) almost sure limits, ii) fluctuation results, and iii) explicit expressions for growth rates (Lyapunov exponents) of the positive integer moments of $S_t$. Under the Euler-Maruyama discretization for $(S_t,\log σ_t)$, the Lyapunov exponents have a phase transition, which appears in numerical simulations of the model as a numerical explosion of the asset price moments. We derive criteria for the appearance of these explosions.