Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 40 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Put and define the nonnegative reserve rate . The obstacle problem gives and . The American-option superhedge with a funded reserve invests the local surplus in the bond rather than consuming it.
For initial wealth , setand choose the stock and bond holdingsThus and , pathwise at every time. The Itô formula under the original drift givesAdding these equations yieldsThis is a self-financing strategy, and its nonnegative wealth makes it an admissible trading strategy. Continuity of the stock and local regularity of ensure local integrability of the holdings. The construction does not require .
For a classical solution, the usual Itô formula applies directly. The smooth fit solution below is and piecewise , with locally absolutely continuous first derivative. The generalized Itô formula applies with its almost-everywhere second derivative; the absence of a derivative jump means no boundary local time of a semimartingale term. This is the usual regularity interpretation of the perpetual American option obstacle equation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 40 6 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Normalize and put . Its dynamics are . Bounded volatility makes this stochastic exponential a true martingale on each finite horizon, by the Novikov condition. It also gives a finite second moment: stopping the Itô formula for and applying the Gronwall inequality yields when .
The discounted payoff is thus square-integrable. Define the nonnegative martingaleThe Brownian martingale representation theorem says that every square-integrable martingale in the Brownian filtration has a representation with predictable and . Since and , chooseThen discounted gains satisfy . Consequently is self-financing, nonnegative, and hence an admissible trading strategy. At maturity , proving claim replication at cost .
For minimality, discounted wealth of any admissible self-financing portfolio is a local martingale bounded below, hence a supermartingale by localization and the conditional Fatou lemma. Thus any such replication with initial wealth obeysTogether with the constructed portfolio, this provesThis is Brownian representation replication in a local volatility market. The given drift means that the original probability measure already serves as the risk-neutral measure.