Discrete hedging under piecewise linear risk minimization

ABSTRACT In an incomplete market it is usually impossible to eliminate the intrinsic risk of an option. In this case quadratic risk minimization is often used to determine a hedging strategy. However, it may be more natural to use piecewise linear risk minimization.;We investigate hedging strategies using piecewise linear risk minimization. We illustrate that this criterion for risk minimization may lead to a smaller expected total hedging cost and significantly different, possibly more desirable, hedging strategies from those of quadratic risk minimization. The distributions of the total hedging cost and risk show that hedging strategies obtained by piecewise linear risk minimization have a larger probability of small cost and risk, though they also have a very small probability of larger cost and risk. Comparative numerical results are provided. We also prove that the value processes of these hedging strategies satisfy put–call parity.