Optimal investment in derivative securities

Abstract.

We consider the problem of optimal investment in a risky asset, and in derivatives written on the price process of this asset, when the underlying asset price process is a pure jump Lévy process. The duality approach of Karatzas and Shreve is used to derive the optimal consumption and investment plans. In our economy, the optimal derivative payoff can be constructed from dynamic trading in the risky asset and in European options of all strikes. Specific closed forms illustrate the optimal derivative contracts when the utility function is in the HARA class and when the statistical and risk-neutral price processes are in the variance gamma (VG) class. In this case, we observe that the optimal derivative contract pays a function of the price relatives continuously through time.