Backward Stochastic PDEs related to the utility maximization problem

Abstract

We study utility maximization problem for general utility functions using dynamic programming approach. We consider an incomplete financial market model, where the dynamics of asset prices are described by an $R^d$-valued continuous semimartingale. Under some regularity assumptions we derive backward stochastic partial differential equation (BSPDE) related directly to the primal problem and show that the strategy is optimal if and only if the corresponding wealth process satisfies a certain forward-SDE. As examples the cases of power, exponential and logarithmic utilities are considered.