Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/ii/paper-3/27i/a/solution

Under the given risk-neutral measure, the option price is . Thus is a martingale. This valuation also follows from delta hedging: cancel the Brownian exposure with units of stock, after which absence of arbitrage makes the locally riskless remainder earn .
Set . The stated Brownian martingale identity and the chain rule give
The drift vanishes because discounted option value is a martingale. Consequently the Black-Scholes equation is
For bounded measurable payoffs, the conditional-expectation solution is smooth for ; terminal values are interpreted in the usual limiting sense at continuity points, or in the bounded measurable pricing sense.

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