Page 1 of 17

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/index.php/JSMaP

e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 01 Issue 07

August 2015

Available online: http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/ P a g e | 109

Empirical Verification of Heston Model of Stock

Market Prices

1E.O.Ogbaji, 2E.S.Onah,3T.Aboiyar and 4A.R.Kimbir

1Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Federal University Wukari

(Ogbajieka@yahoo.com)

2,3,4Department of Mathematics/Statistics/Computer Science University Of Agriculture, Makurdi

Abstract

Volatility is a great concern to investors.

Investors like to know how much volatility or

risk that they are exposed to before they can

invest in a stock. Potential investors are

advised to invest in companies that exhibit

relative calm or high stability. In [1] where

they used geometric Brownian motion model

to study the behaviour of stock market prices.

In their study, volatility was considered over a

very long of time in such case, it is difficult for

investors to predict the behaviour of stock

price for a short period. Also [47] used Heston

model, where volatility was considered over a

short period. This work involves solving the

geometric Brownian motion model used by [1]

and Heston model by transforming it into

parabolic partial differential equation and to

show that the analytical solution satisfy the

parabolic differential equation. We used

selected companies from Nigerian Stock

Exchange to empirically verified Heston

model. A Pascal programming language was

used to code the Euler’s –maruyama method

of the solution of the Heston model. We

conclude that Stock price is randomly

distributed, positive return on investment and

low volatility of stock price imply viable and

growing company at a particular period,

negative return on investment and high

volatility of stock price imply non-viable and

collapsing company at that particular period,

volatility and return on investment are also

randomly distributed. In view of the above

results, we recommend that companies with

low stock price volatility and positive return

on investment are advised to investment

in.Heston model can be extended to three and

four compartments by incorporating return on

investment and return on investment volatility.

Key words: Stock price, voltality of stock

price, rate of return and return on investment

INTRODUCTION

In finance, the Heston model, named after

Steven Heston, is a mathematical model

describing the evolution of the volatility of an

underlying asset. It is a stochastic volatility

model: such a model assumes that the

volatility of the asset is not constant, nor even

deterministic, but follows a random process.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)

commenced operation in 1961with only 19

companies worth N80million. As at May 2009,

the number of listed companies had increased

to 294, made up of 86 Government Stocks

with Industrial Loans Stocks and 208 Equity/

Ordinary Shares (including emerging market)

with a total market capitalization of N9.45

trillion.However, the Nigerian Stock Exchange

Page 2 of 17

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/index.php/JSMaP

e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 01 Issue 07

August 2015

Available online: http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/ P a g e | 110

still seems to have a long way to go when

compared with developed stock markets.

The volatility of each stock as estimated by the

conditional variance shows some reasonable

level of persistence and reverts to the mean

value very slowly. This could arise as a result

of misspecification of the conditional variance

function or the ignorance of structural break(s)

in the unconditional variance which has not

been established.

The ability of financial system and markets to play these roles hinges on the stability in the system particularly the stock prices. The major component of instability in stock prices is exhibited by the varying conditional variance (volatility) of the stock prices. Hence, to be able to establish and maintain a viable stock market that could enhance the growth of

the economy, there must be an in depth and

comprehensive understanding of the volatility

of stock price[28].

Volatility is one of the important aspects of

financial market developments providing an

important input for portfolio management,

option pricing and market regulations[39].

Stock returns volatility differs dramatically

across international markets

([46],[43],[43],[29,30],[10]and[3]) and have

received a great attention from both

academicians and practitioners over the last

two decades because it can be used as a

measure of risk in financial markets. Volatility

of stock returns has long been an issue of

interest in financial literature. A wide variety

of research has been conducted on stock

returns volatility in developed and emerging

markets since 1970s. Nature of volatility in

different markets at different times are

discovered, which are indeed of great interest

for financial economists. Financial economists

are also interested about the causes and

variables behind the existence and nature as

well as the anomalies relating to market

volatility.In [1] where they used geometric

Brownian motion model to study the

behaviour of stock market price. In their study,

volatility was considered over a very long

period of time in such case, it is difficult for

investors to predict the behaviour of stock

price for a short period. Also[47] used Heston

model, where volatility was considered over a

short period. In this study, we reviewed the

model used by [1] and [47],where empirical

verification of Heston model is done by using

data of selected companies from Nigerian

Stock Exchange.

Page 3 of 17

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

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e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 01 Issue 07

August 2015

Available online: http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/ P a g e | 111

2.1 THE HESTON MODEL

In this section, we show derivation of the

parabolic partial differential equation of the

model and show how the solution of the model

satisfied the derived parabolic partial

differential equation. The following

assumptions are made; the interest rate

is

constant,Stock price St follows a Black- Scholes type of stochastic process, but with a

stochastic variance Vt that follows a

Cox,Ingersoll and Ross(CIR) process. Then

the model is given as:

dSt= Stdt  Vt

StdWt

dVt=x(

 Vt

)dt +

 Vt

dZt

(2.1)

dWtdZt= dt

The parameters above are defined as below:

is the drift coefficient of the stock price

is the long-term mean of variance

x is the rate of mean reversion

is the volatility of volatility

St and Vt are the stock price and volatility

process respectively

To take into account the leverage effect, stock

returns and implied volatility are negatively

correlated.Wt and Zt are correlated Wiener

process, and the correlation coefficients is

.We dropped the time index and write

S=St,V=Vt.

We explain how to derive the PDE from

the Heston model. This derivation is a special

case of a PDE for general stochastic volatility

models form of a portfolio consisting of one

option V = V (S,v, t),

units of the stock S,

and

units of another option U =U(S, v, t)

that is used to hedge the volatility. The

portfolio has value,

= V +

S +

U

where

=

t. Assuming the portfolio is self-financing, the change in portfolio

value is

d

= dV +

dS +

dU

Apply Itô’s Lemma to dV . We must differentiate with respect to the variables

t,S, and v. Hence