Mediaspace scheduled maintenance: Aug 25, 2026 07:00 - 12:00 AM. During this time, videos will be temporarily unavailable. Check status updates.

Lecture

Random Walk: Hitting Probabilities

In course

FIN-415: Probability and stochastic calculus

This course gives an introduction to probability theory and stochastic calculus in discrete and continuous time. The fundamental notions and techniques introduced in this course have many applications in finance, for example for option pricing, risk mana ...

Description

This lecture covers the concept of random walks, hitting probabilities, recursive structures, and the optional sampling theorem. It also delves into the distribution of maximum values and Gaussian processes, including AR(1) processes and the Kalman filter.

This video is available exclusively on Mediaspace for a restricted audience. Please log in to MediaSpace to access it if you have the necessary permissions.

Watch on Mediaspace

Instructors (2)

Semyon Malamud

Damir Filipovic

Damir Filipovic holds the Swissquote Chair in Quantitative Finance and is Swiss Finance Institute Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Prior to this, he was head of the Vienna Institute of Finance and professor at the University of Vienna. He previously held the chair of financial and insurance mathematics at the University of Munich, and he was on the faculty of Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from ETH Zurich in 2000. Damir Filipovic worked as a scientific consultant for the Swiss Federal Office of Private Insurance from 2003 to 2004. There he co-developed the Swiss Solvency Test, which defines the regulatory capital requirement for all Swiss based insurance companies and groups. He is on the editorial board of several academic journals. His research interests include the term structure of interest rates, credit and volatility risk, quantitative methods in risk management, and stochastic processes. His papers have been published in a variety of academic journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, Mathematical Finance, Finance and Stochastics, and the Annals of Applied Probability. He is the author of a textbook titled Term-Structure Models.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Statistics

Statistical inference: Mathematical statistics

Related concepts (32)

Cauchy distribution

The Cauchy distribution, named after Augustin Cauchy, is a continuous probability distribution. It is also known, especially among physicists, as the Lorentz distribution (after Hendrik Lorentz), Cauchy–Lorentz distribution, Lorentz(ian) function, or Breit–Wigner distribution. The Cauchy distribution is the distribution of the x-intercept of a ray issuing from with a uniformly distributed angle. It is also the distribution of the ratio of two independent normally distributed random variables with mean zero.

Maximum entropy probability distribution

In statistics and information theory, a maximum entropy probability distribution has entropy that is at least as great as that of all other members of a specified class of probability distributions. According to the principle of maximum entropy, if nothing is known about a distribution except that it belongs to a certain class (usually defined in terms of specified properties or measures), then the distribution with the largest entropy should be chosen as the least-informative default.

Maximum likelihood estimation

In statistics, maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is a method of estimating the parameters of an assumed probability distribution, given some observed data. This is achieved by maximizing a likelihood function so that, under the assumed statistical model, the observed data is most probable. The point in the parameter space that maximizes the likelihood function is called the maximum likelihood estimate. The logic of maximum likelihood is both intuitive and flexible, and as such the method has become a dominant means of statistical inference.

Kalman filter

For statistics and control theory, Kalman filtering, also known as linear quadratic estimation (LQE), is an algorithm that uses a series of measurements observed over time, including statistical noise and other inaccuracies, and produces estimates of unknown variables that tend to be more accurate than those based on a single measurement alone, by estimating a joint probability distribution over the variables for each timeframe. The filter is named after Rudolf E. Kálmán, who was one of the primary developers of its theory.

Continuous uniform distribution

In probability theory and statistics, the continuous uniform distributions or rectangular distributions are a family of symmetric probability distributions. Such a distribution describes an experiment where there is an arbitrary outcome that lies between certain bounds. The bounds are defined by the parameters, and which are the minimum and maximum values. The interval can either be closed (i.e. ) or open (i.e. ). Therefore, the distribution is often abbreviated where stands for uniform distribution.

Related lectures (29)

Continuous Random Variables

Covers continuous random variables, probability density functions, and distributions, with practical examples.

Concentration Inequalities

Covers concentration inequalities and sampling methods for estimating unknown distributions, with a focus on population infection rates.

Maximum Likelihood Estimation

Covers Maximum Likelihood Estimation, focusing on ML Estimation-Distribution, Shrinkage Estimation, and Loss functions.

Advanced Probabilities: Random Variables & Expected Values

Explores advanced probabilities, random variables, and expected values, with practical examples and quizzes to reinforce learning.

Convergence of Random Variables