Explain Why It Is Impossible to Derive An Analytical Formula For Valuing American
Puts.
Explain why it has proved impossible to derive an analytical formula for valuing
American Puts, and outline the main techniques that are used to produce
approximate valuations for such securities
Investing in stock options is a way used by investors to hedge against risk. It
is simply because all the investors could lose if the option is not exercised
before the expiration rate is just the option price (that is the premium) that
he or she has paid earlier. Call options give the investor the right to buy the
underlying stock at the exercise price, X; while the put options give the
investor the right to sell the underlying security at X. However only America
options can be exercised at any time during the life of the option if the holder
sees fit while European options can only be exercised at the expiration rate,
and this is the reason why American put options are normally valued higher than
European options. Nonetheless it has been proved by academics that it is
impossible to derive an analytical formula for valuing American put options and
the reason why will be discussed in this paper as well as some main suggested
techniques that are used to value them.
According to Hull, exercising an American put option on a non-dividend-paying
stock early if it is sufficiently deeply in the money can be an optimal practice.
For example, suppose that the strike price of an American option is $20 and the
stock price is virtually zero. By exercising early at this point of time, an
investor makes an immediate gain of $20. On the contrary, if the investor waits,
he might not be able t ...