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aristidis
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Joined: March 5th, 2004, 5:34 pm

Binary Option under Normal model

August 7th, 2004, 2:32 am

hello allConsider a binary option with the following payoff: +1, when 30y-10y swap rate > 0 0 , elseToday is time=0, the spread is observed at time t and the payoffis paid at time T.I am trying to price and/or extract the probability that 30y-10y>0, under the assumption that the spread is distributed under Normal(mu,sigma),where mu is the mean of the distribution of spreads and sigma = sqrt(251)*[ daily changes in 30y-10y spreadsWould someone be so kind to provide the Normal diffusion process, the expression describing the distribution of the of the Spreadat time t under the Normal model, the probability that the spread >0.Is this correct?I would greatly appreciate your help.
 
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Aaron
Posts: 4
Joined: July 23rd, 2001, 3:46 pm

Binary Option under Normal model

August 8th, 2004, 8:16 pm

Unless I misunderstand you, the problem is trivial. At time t the expected spread is S(0) + mu*t and the standard deviation is sigma*t^0.5, where S(0) is the spread at time zero. All you need is the probability that a standard Normal variate is greater than [S(0) + mu*t]/(sigma*t^0.5). You can look it up in a table, or use the Excel funtion NORMDIST(0,S(0) + mu*t,sigma*t^0.5,TRUE).