Optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider

We consider an optimal stopping problem arising in connection with the exercise of an executive stock option by an agent with inside information. The agent is assumed to have noisy information on the terminal value of the stock, does not trade the stock or outside securities, and maximises the expec...

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Main Authors: Monoyios, M, Ng, A
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2011
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author Monoyios, M
Ng, A
author_facet Monoyios, M
Ng, A
author_sort Monoyios, M
collection OXFORD
description We consider an optimal stopping problem arising in connection with the exercise of an executive stock option by an agent with inside information. The agent is assumed to have noisy information on the terminal value of the stock, does not trade the stock or outside securities, and maximises the expected discounted payoff over all stopping times with regard to an enlarged filtration which includes the inside information. This leads to a stopping problem governed by a time-inhomogeneous diffusion and a call-type reward. We establish conditions under which the option value exhibits time decay, and derive the smooth fit condition for the solution to the free boundary problem governing the maximum expected reward, and derive the early exercise decomposition of the value function. The resulting integral equation for the unknown exercise boundary is solved numerically and this shows that the insider may exercise the option before maturity, in situations when an agent without the privileged information may not. Hence we show that early exercise may arise due to the agent having inside information on the future stock price. © 2011 World Scientific Publishing Company.
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spelling oxford-uuid:1f09037f-2855-4284-9a82-ad1b5c657b2a2022-03-26T11:19:38ZOptimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insiderJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:1f09037f-2855-4284-9a82-ad1b5c657b2aEnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2011Monoyios, MNg, AWe consider an optimal stopping problem arising in connection with the exercise of an executive stock option by an agent with inside information. The agent is assumed to have noisy information on the terminal value of the stock, does not trade the stock or outside securities, and maximises the expected discounted payoff over all stopping times with regard to an enlarged filtration which includes the inside information. This leads to a stopping problem governed by a time-inhomogeneous diffusion and a call-type reward. We establish conditions under which the option value exhibits time decay, and derive the smooth fit condition for the solution to the free boundary problem governing the maximum expected reward, and derive the early exercise decomposition of the value function. The resulting integral equation for the unknown exercise boundary is solved numerically and this shows that the insider may exercise the option before maturity, in situations when an agent without the privileged information may not. Hence we show that early exercise may arise due to the agent having inside information on the future stock price. © 2011 World Scientific Publishing Company.
spellingShingle Monoyios, M
Ng, A
Optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider
title Optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider
title_full Optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider
title_fullStr Optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider
title_full_unstemmed Optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider
title_short Optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider
title_sort optimal exercise of an executive stock option by an insider
work_keys_str_mv AT monoyiosm optimalexerciseofanexecutivestockoptionbyaninsider
AT nga optimalexerciseofanexecutivestockoptionbyaninsider