Expected Shortfall and optimal hedging payoff.

Summary By using variational techniques, we provide an optimal payoff written on a given random variable for hedging – in the sense of minimizing the Expected Shortfall at a given threshold – a payoff written on another random variable. In numerous financially relevant examples, our result leads to optimal payoffs in closed form. From a theoretical viewpoint, our result is also useful for providing bounds to the classical Expected Shortfall minimization problem with given financial instruments.