Contour integral method for European options with jumps

We develop an efficient method for pricing European options with jump on a single asset. Our approach is based on the combination of two powerful numerical methods, the spectral domain decomposition method and the Laplace transform method. The domain decomposition method divides the original domain into sub-domains where the solution is approximated by using piecewise high order rational interpolants on a Chebyshev grid points. This set of points are suitable for the approximation of the convolution integral using Gauss–Legendre quadrature method. The resulting discrete problem is solved by the numerical inverse Laplace transform using the Bromwich contour integral approach. Through rigorous error analysis, we determine the optimal contour on which the integral is evaluated. The numerical results obtained are compared with those obtained from conventional methods such as Crank–Nicholson and finite difference. The new approach exhibits spectrally accurate results for the evaluation of options and associated Greeks. The proposed method is very efficient in the sense that we can achieve higher order accuracy on a coarse grid, whereas traditional methods would required significantly more time-steps and large number of grid points.

► This paper deals with design of a class of robust numerical methods for nonlinear PIDEs in finance.
► Proposed method consists of the spectral domain decomposition and Laplace transform methods.
► Method is applied to solve a model of European options with jumps.
► Using rigorous mathematical analysis, we obtained the optimal contour parameters.
► Results that we obtain are spectrally accurate.