Estimating delta and gamma without a formula
Question
An option has no closed-form price and you value it numerically. How would you estimate its delta and gamma?
Short answer
Use finite differences on the pricer with common random numbers, or pathwise and likelihood-ratio estimators. Central differences give and ; reuse the same random draws for each bump so the noise largely cancels. In a tree or PDE grid, read them off neighbouring nodes. Pathwise derivatives work for smooth payoffs; likelihood-ratio weights handle discontinuous ones.
Adapted from Zhou, A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews, sec. 7.3 Numerical Methods, 'Monte Carlo simulation D', p.187; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
See the hint and the full worked solution in the question bank (free account).
Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Monte Carlo Option Pricing
- Applications — Monte Carlo Estimation, Error, and Confidence Intervals
- Derivation — From Binomial Trees to Black-Scholes in the Continuous Limit
Start with a free lesson: Basic Statistics and Regression is part of a free topic. Create a free account, no card needed, to read it in full with worked solutions.
Read it free