Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/iii/paper-211/3/d/solution

Let be the stock holding and let be the initial cost, so the cash holding is . Terminal portfolio wealth at stock price is . Dominating the European call option payoff at the three possible prices gives
Adding the two endpoint inequalities yields . Equality is attained by and , which imply . The corresponding terminal wealth is at , respectively, compared with the required payoff . The cheapest super-replication strategy is
The middle-state excess shows why this is superhedging rather than exact claim replication. The endpoint bound proves global minimality, without relying on the physical state probabilities.

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