Introduction to stochastic calculus for fractional Brownian motion with rough volatility

In recent years, there has been a great interest in modelling financial markets using fractional Brownian motions. It has been noted in studies that ordinary diffusion based stochastic volatility models cannot reproduce certain stylized facts that are observed in financial markets, such as the fact that the at the money (ATM) volatility skew tends to infinity at short maturities. Rough stochastic volatility models, where the spot volatility process is driven by a fractional Brownian motion, can reproduce these effects. Although the use of long memory processes in finance has been advocated since the 1970s, it has taken until now for fractional Brownian motion to gain widespread attention. This thesis serves as an introduction to the subject. We begin by presenting the mathematical definition of fractional Brownian motion and its basic mathematical properties. Most importantly, we show that fractional Brownian motion is not a semimartingale, which means that the theory of Itô calculus cannot be applied to stochastic integrals with fractional Brownian motion as integrator. We also present important representations of fractional Brownian motion as moving average process of a Brownian motion. In the subsequent chapter, we show that we can define a Wiener integral with respect to fractional Brownian motion as a Wiener integral with respect to Brownian motion with transformed integrand. We also present divergence type integrals with respect to fractional Brownian motion and an Itô type formula for fractional Brownian motion. In the last chapter, we introduce rough volatility. We derive the so called rough Bergomi model model that can be seen as an extension of the Bergomi stochastic volatility model. We then show that for a general stochastic volatility model, there is an exact analytical expression for the ATM volatility skew, defined as the derivative of the volatility smile slope with respect to strike price evaluated at the money. We then present an expression for the short time limit of the ATM volatility skew under general assumptions which shows that in order to reproduce the observed short time limit of infinity, the volatility must be driven by a fractional process. We conclude the thesis by comparing the rough Bergomi model to SABR- and Heston stochastic volatility models