Florian Bourgey

Building on the forest expansion of Alòs, Gatheral and Radoičić and on the explicit Bergomi-Guyon smile expansion derived by Bourgey and Gatheral (2026), we derive fixed-point approximations, in terms of the implied total variance at a small number of magic strikes, for the fair values of power payoff contracts; the variance and gamma contracts arise as the endpoints of this one-parameter family, priced by a single set of formulae. We prove that such approximations exist at every order: at order n, 2⌈n/2⌉ + 1 magic strikes suffice. Numerical tests under the Heston and rough Bergomi models demonstrate good accuracy even for strongly skewed smiles, and the method applies directly to interpolated market smiles without strike inversion. For the volatility contract, we show that the maturity-T smile does not determine the leading correction to the Rolloos-Arslan approximation.

Alòs, Gatheral and Radoičić derived the Bergomi-Guyon expansion of the implied variance smile from the forest expansion of the cumulant generating function. Its coefficients are sums of products of diamond trees, with prefactors that are polynomials in the log-strike k. Matching moments order by order produces, at order eps^l, terms of degree greater than l in k that mysteriously cancel. We show that, in suitable variables, the matching condition can be formulated as a nonlinear heat equation. The resulting recursion computes the prefactor of each product of trees from those of products of fewer trees, without generating the higher-degree terms; its only model-independent input is a cumulant series, which we compute in closed form. Consequently, at order eps^l every prefactor has degree exactly l in k. The prefactors are universal and need only be computed once. Code and coefficients are provided.

1. While the static properties of stochastic volatility models have been extensively studied in the literature, their equally (and arguably even more) important dynamic properties have received les...

Approximations stochastiques pour les calculs de risques financiers: Dans cette thèse, nous examinons plusieurs méthodes d'approximations stochastiques à la fois pour le calcul de mesures de risques financiers et pour le pricing de produits dérivés.Comme les formules explicites sont rarement disponibles pour de telles quantités, le besoin d'approximations analytiques rapides,efficaces et fiables est d'une importance capitale pour les institutions financières.Nous visons ainsi à donner un large aperçu de ces méthodes d'approximation et nous nous concentrons sur trois approches distinctes.Dans la première partie, nous étudions plusieurs méthodes d'approximation Monte Carlo multi-niveaux et les appliquons à deux problèmes pratiques :l'estimation de quantités impliquant des espérances imbriquées (comme la marge initiale) ainsi que la discrétisation des intégrales apparaissant dans les modèles rough pour la variance forward pour le pricing d'options sur le VIX.Dans les deux cas, nous analysons les propriétés d'optimalité asymptotique des estimateurs multi-niveaux correspondants et démontrons numériquement leur supériorité par rapport à une méthode de Monte Carlo classique.Dans la deuxième partie, motivés par les nombreux exemples issus de la modélisation en risque de crédit, nous proposons un cadre général de métamodélisation pour de grandes sommes de variables aléatoires de Bernoulli pondérées, qui sont conditionnellement indépendantes par rapport à un facteur commun X. Notre approche générique est basée sur la décomposition en polynômes du chaos du facteur commun et sur une approximation gaussienne. Les estimations d'erreur L2 sont données lorsque le facteur X est associé à des polynômes orthogonaux classiques.Enfin, dans la dernière partie de cette thèse, nous nous intéressons aux asymptotiques en temps court de la volatilité implicite américaine et les prix d'options américaines dans les modèles à volatilité locale. Nous proposons également une approximation en loi de l'indice VIX dans des modèles rough pour la variance forward, exprimée en termes de proxys log-normaux et dérivons des résultats d'expansion pour les options sur le VIX dont les coefficients sont explicites.

Several asymptotic results for the implied volatility generated by a rough volatility model have been obtained in recent years (notably in the small-maturity regime), providing a better understanding of the shapes of the volatility surface induced by rough volatility models, and supporting their calibration power to S&P500 option data. Rough volatility models also generate a local volatility surface, via the so-called Markovian projection of the stochastic volatility. We complement the existing results on the implied volatility by studying the asymptotic behavior of the local volatility surface generated by a class of rough stochastic volatility models, encompassing the rough Bergomi model. Notably, we observe that the celebrated "1/2 skew rule" linking the short-term at-the-money skew of the implied volatility to the short-term at-the-money skew of the local volatility, a consequence of the celebrated "harmonic mean formula" of [Berestycki, Busca, and Florent, QF 2002], is replaced by a new rule: the ratio of the at-the-money implied and local volatility skews tends to the constant 1/(H + 3/2) (as opposed to the constant 1/2), where H is the regularity index of the underlying instantaneous volatility process.

We provide explicit approximation formulas for VIX futures and options in forward variance models, with particular emphasis on the family of so-called Bergomi models: the one-factor Bergomi model [Bergomi, Smile dynamics II, Risk, 2005], the rough Bergomi model [Bayer, Friz, and Gatheral, Pricing under rough volatility, Quantitative Finance, 16(6):887-904, 2016], and an enhanced version of the rough model that can generate realistic positive skew for VIX smiles -- introduced simultaneously by De Marco [Bachelier World Congress, 2018] and Guyon [Bachelier World Congress, 2018] on the lines of [Bergomi, Smile dynamics III, Risk, 2008], that we refer to as 'mixed rough Bergomi model'. Following the methodology set up in [Gobet and Miri, Weak approximation of averaged diffusion processes. Stochastic Process.\ Appl., 124(1):475-504, 2014], we derive weak approximations for the law of the VIX, leading to option price approximations under the form of explicit combinations of Black-Scholes prices and greeks. As new contributions, we cope with the fractional integration kernel appearing in rough models and treat the case of non-smooth payoffs, so to encompass VIX futures, call and put options. We stress that our approach does not rely on small-time asymptotics nor small-parameter (such as small volatility-of-volatility) asymptotics, and can therefore be applied to any option maturity and a wide range of parameter configurations. Our results are illustrated by several numerical experiments and calibration tests to VIX market data.

The authors consider the pricing of the Chicago Board options Exchange VIX, demonstrating experiments highlighting the efficiency of a multilevel approach in