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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 Δ≈V(S+h)−V(S−h)2h\Delta\approx\frac{V(S+h)-V(S-h)}{2h} and Γ≈V(S+h)−2V(S)+V(S−h)h2\Gamma\approx\frac{V(S+h)-2V(S)+V(S-h)}{h^2}; 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.

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