Hilaire Nzokem

Dr. Hilaire Nzokem

Department of Mathematics, Copper Mountain College, Joshua Tree, California, USA
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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

7Years (2020-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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Hilaire NzokemHilaire Nzokem
Hilaire Nzokem
The paper builds a Variance-Gamma (VG) model with five parameters: location (μ), symmetry (δ), volatility (σ), shape (α), and scale (θ); and studies its application to the pricing of European options. The results of our analysis show that the five-parameter VG model is a stochastic volatility model with a Γ(α,θ) Ornstein–Uhlenbeck type process; the associated Lévy density of the VG model is a KoBoL family of order ν=0, intensity α, and steepness parameters δσ2−δ2σ4+2θσ2 and δσ2+δ2σ4+2θσ2; and the VG process converges asymptotically in distribution to a Lévy process driven by a normal distribution with mean (μ+αθδ) and variance α(θ2δ2+σ2θ). The data used for empirical analysis were obtained by fitting the five-parameter Variance-Gamma (VG) model to the underlying distribution of the daily SPY ETF data. Regarding the application of the five-parameter VG model, the twelve-point rule Composite Newton–Cotes Quadrature and Fractional Fast Fourier (FRFT) algorithms were implemented to compute the European option price. Compared to the Black–Scholes (BS) model, empirical evidence shows that the VG option price is underpriced for out-of-the-money (OTM) options and overpriced for in-the-money (ITM) options. Both models produce almost the same option pricing results for deep out-of-the-money (OTM) and deep-in-the-money (ITM) options.

1 November 2021 in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
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Conference Paper
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Hilaire NzokemHilaire Nzokem
Hilaire Nzokem
The paper examines the Fractional Fourier Transform (FRFT) based technique as a tool for obtaining the probability density function and its derivatives; and mainly for fitting stochastic model with the fundamental probabilistic relationships of infinite divisibility. The probability density functions are computed, and the distributional proprieties are reviewed for Variance-Gamma (VG) model. The VG model has been increasingly used as an alternative to the Classical Lognormal Model (CLM) in modelling asset prices. The VG model was estimated by the FRFT. The data comes from the SPY ETF historical prices. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) goodness-of-fit shows that the VG model fits better the cumulative distribution of the sample data than the CLM. The best VG model comes from the FRFT estimation.

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Hilaire NzokemHilaire Nzokem
Hilaire Nzokem
DMDaniel Maposa
Daniel Maposa
The S&P 500 Index is considered the most popular trading instrument in financial markets. With the rise of cryptocurrencies over the past few years, Bitcoin has grown in popularity and adoption. This study analyzes the daily return distribution of Bitcoin and the S&P 500 Index and assesses their tail probabilities using two financial risk measures. As a methodology, we use Bitcoin and S&P 500 Index daily return data to fit the seven-parameter General Tempered Stable (GTS) distribution using the advanced fast fractional Fourier transform (FRFT) scheme developed by combining the fast fractional Fourier transform algorithm and the 12-point composite Newton–Cotes rule. The findings show that peakedness is the main characteristic of the S&P 500 Index return distribution, whereas heavy-tailedness is the main characteristic of Bitcoin return distribution. The GTS distribution shows that 80.05% of S&P 500 returns are within −1.06% and 1.23% against only 40.32% of Bitcoin returns. At a risk level (α), the severity of the loss (AVaRα(X)) on the left side of the distribution is larger than the severity of the profit (AVaR1−α(X)) on the right side of the distribution. Compared to the S&P 500 Index, Bitcoin has 39.73% more prevalence to produce high daily returns (more than 1.23% or less than −1.06%). The severity analysis shows that, at α risk level, the average value-at-risk (AVaR(X)) of Bitcoin returns at one significant figure is four times larger than that of the S&P 500 Index returns at the same risk.

1 November 2021 in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
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Hilaire NzokemHilaire Nzokem
Hilaire Nzokem
The paper aims at solving a complex equation with Gamma - integral. The solution is the infected size (p) at equilibrium. The approaches are both numerical and analytical methods. As a numerical method, the higher-order composite Newton-Cotes formula is developed and implemented. The results show that the infected size (p) increases along with the shape parameter (k). But the increase has two phases: an increasing rate phase and a decreasing rate phase; both phases can be explained by the instantaneous death rate characteristics of the Gamma distribution hazard function. As an analytical method, the Extreme Value Theory consolidates the numerical solutions of the infected size (p) when k ≥ 1 and provides a solution limit ( p = 1 − 1 2 R ) as k goes to +∞.

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Hilaire NzokemHilaire Nzokem
Hilaire Nzokem
DMDaniel Maposa
Daniel Maposa
This paper proposes and implements a methodology to fit a seven-parameter Generalized Tempered Stable (GTS) distribution to financial data. The nonexistence of the mathematical expression of the GTS probability density function makes maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) inadequate for providing parameter estimations. Based on the function characteristic and the fractional Fourier transform (FRFT), we provide a comprehensive approach to circumvent the problem and yield a good parameter estimation of the GTS probability. The methodology was applied to fit two heavy-tailed data (Bitcoin and Ethereum returns) and two peaked data (S&P 500 and SPY ETF returns). For each historical data, the estimation results show that six-parameter estimations are statistically significant except for the local parameter, μ. The goodness of fit was assessed through Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Anderson–Darling, and Pearson’s chi-squared statistics. While the two-parameter geometric Brownian motion (GBM) hypothesis is always rejected, the GTS distribution fits significantly with a very high p-value and outperforms the Kobol, Carr–Geman–Madan–Yor, and bilateral Gamma distributions.

27 May 2021 in International Journal of Statistics and Probability
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Hilaire NzokemHilaire Nzokem
Hilaire Nzokem
We are interested in describing the dynamics of the infected size of the SIS Epidemic model using the Birth-Death Markov process. The Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible (SIS) model is defined within a population of constant size $M$; the size is kept constant by replacing each death with a newborn healthy individual. The life span of each individual in the population is modelled by an exponential distribution with parameter $\alpha$; the disease spreads within the population is modelled by a Poisson process with a rate $\lambda_{I}$. $\lambda_{I}=\beta I(1-\frac{I}{M}) $ is similar to the instantaneous rate in the logistic population growth model. The analysis is focused on the disease outbreak, where the reproduction number $R=\frac{\beta} {\alpha} $ is greater than one. As methodology, we use both numerical and analytical approaches. The numerical approach shows that the infected size dynamics converge to a stationary stochastic process. And the analytical results determine the distribution of the stationary stochastic process as a normal distribution with mean $(1-\frac{1}{R}) M$ and Variance $\frac{M}{R} $ when $M$ becomes larger.