Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-continuous-martingales-and-stochastic-calculus-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/2/a/ii/solution

For a bounded simple predictable process and a continuous martingale , the Itô isometry states
Here is the predictable quadratic variation, equal to for a continuous martingale. On the whole half-line, the terminal form is
The Itô integral starts at zero even when . For Brownian motion, .
For completeness, cross terms of the finite increment sum have expectation zero by conditioning on the earlier endpoint of the later increment. Also is a martingale, so the remaining terms satisfy
This proves the displayed identity without a change-of-variables formula. Completing bounded simple predictable processes in the norm defines the Itô integral of every square-integrable stochastic integrand. This completion will justify the unbounded Brownian integrands below.

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