Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematical-models-of-financial-derivatives-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/3/d/solution

Keep the maturity fixed and write , where
As calendar time increases, , so , and . Applying the Itô formula to and then to its exponential gives
The Itô formula's exponential correction cancels the displayed drift of . The zero drift also follows from the tower property of conditional expectation: for , . In particular , while the quote's instantaneous spot volatility approaches as expiry approaches.
This is a martingale under the same measure used in the stipulated conditional expectation. To interpret it as futures pricing, that measure must be a suitable pricing measure. For a non-dividend-paying traded stock at a deterministic interest rate, the absence of arbitrage instead gives a forward contract delivery price . A physical-measure expectation under the given mean-reverting drift is not automatically that price; the question's expectation convention is sufficient for the calculation above, but not for this additional identification.

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