An expansion in the model space in the context of utility maximization

In the framework of an incomplete financial market where the stock price dynamics are modeled by a continuous semimartingale (not necessarily Markovian) an explicit second-order expansion formula for the power investor's value function - seen as a function of the underlying market price of risk process - is provided. This allows us to provide first-order approximations of the optimal primal and dual controls. Two specific calibrated numerical examples illustrating the accuracy of the method are also given.