Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2001/iii/paper-23/3/e/solution

For strike and maturity , a European call option and a European put option have boundary conditions
The Black-Scholes equation is solved backward from these conditions. At zero stock price, the zero state is absorbing in geometric Brownian motion, so
At the other boundary, with ,
These conditions and a suitable growth bound select the financial solution and provide boundary data for numerical truncations. In the constant-coefficient model, under the risk-neutral measure,
For and , the exercise event is . Completing the square in times the normal density gives the truncated first moment and hence
where is the standard normal cumulative distribution function. These are the Black-Scholes formula values and satisfy the specified terminal and boundary conditions.
Put-call parity is the relation
A call minus a put has terminal financial payoff . A portfolio of one share minus a zero-coupon bond paying has the same financial payoff, so absence of arbitrage and law of one price equate their current values. The formula here assumes the same strike and maturity and no dividends; known dividends modify the stock-side value.

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