Viscosity solutions of HJB equations arising from the valuation of European passport options

The passport option is a call option on the balance of a trading account. The option holder retains the gain from trading, while the issuer is liable for the net loss. In this article, the mathematical foundation for pricing the European passport option is established. The pricing equation which is a fully nonlinear equation is derived using the dynamic programming principle. The comparison principle, uniqueness and convexity preserving of the viscosity solutions of related HJB equation are proved. A relationship between the passport and lookback options is discussed.