Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-martingales-and-financial-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2011/b/4/a/solution

Write , and . In a one-step binomial options pricing model, absence of arbitrage requires . If , borrowing to buy the stock gives a nonnegative gain in either state and a positive gain in at least one. If , shorting the stock and investing the proceeds does the same. Conversely, strict inequalities give the risk-neutral probability , under which the discounted stock is a martingale; this excludes arbitrage at each node. Hence

New to topics? Read the docs here!