On Trading American Put Options with Interactive Volatility

We introduce a simple stochastic volatility model, which takes into account hitting times of the asset price, and study the optimal stopping problem corresponding to a put option whose time horizon (after the asset price hits a certain level) is exponentially distributed. We obtain explicit optimal stopping rules in various cases one of which is interestingly complex because of an unexpectedly disconnected continuation region. Finally, we discuss in detail how these stopping rules could be used for trading an American put when the trader expects a market drop in the near future.