If , every surviving terminal price is already below the strike, so this is a barrier digital put paying one at expiry exactly when the upper barrier has been avoided. To use the Black-Scholes reflection symmetry, cap the free digital-put strike at , rather than continuing to use :Indeed, has terminal payoff one throughout the alive region, while its reflected argument exceeds and hence has zero terminal payoff. The barrier values again cancel. Using in both terms would generally leave an unwanted reflected terminal payoff near the barrier.
Writing makes the discounted survival probability explicit:The price is independent of in this case. Both cases combine by replacing the free strike with in the up-and-out digital put formula.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 39 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Subtract the boundary slope from the Brownian motion: . Then is the first-passage time of to the fixed level . The zero-drift Brownian reflection principle givesHere is the standard normal distribution function. To change the drift to , use the Girsanov theorem on each finite horizon, with density . On , conditional expectation at the stopped time gives , because the density is a true martingale. Since , the drifted Brownian first-passage density is consequentlyThere may be additional mass at infinite hitting time; the displayed density only describes finite passage. With , apply the given zero-drift Brownian first-passage Laplace transform:The zero-discount limit is for and for , so the hitting probability is less than one precisely when the line moves away with positive slope.
For a direct verification of the linear-boundary Brownian first-passage distribution, defineBoth terms tend to zero as . Let be the standard normal density. The identityfollows by expanding the two squares. Differentiating the two normal probabilities then givesSince this is the previously derived hitting density and both distribution functions start at zero,This proof applies to every real , including the defective distribution when .
For the barrier digital put, use the dividend-free Black-Scholes model with constant interest rate and spot volatility . Under the risk-neutral measure,Set andReaching the barrier is equivalent to reaching . The contingent claim pays one only on the survival event . Risk-neutral pricing therefore givesThis is a path-survival price, not the price of a terminal digital put option. Continuity of the stock paths and the absence of an atom in the finite-horizon maximum imply that alternative touching conventions change no price. As , the value tends to ; as , it tends to zero. Both checks agree with the survival interpretation.
Up-and-out digital put 2026-10-25
A digital put option extinguished if the stock reaches an upper barrier . Under the dividend-free Black-Scholes model, conditional on not having hit the barrier before the current time, let , , , , andThen its price isThe Black-Scholes reflection symmetry proves the pricing equation, and the two terms cancel at . At expiry the reflected argument is above , so its payoff is zero, while is equivalent to inside the alive region. Thus the correct free strike is capped at the barrier. For , the value is the discounted upper-barrier survival probability, independent of , as for a barrier digital put. For its terminal data have a corner discontinuity at the absorbing barrier. Set the price to zero after a hit; the reflected expression on the other side is not a valid contract value.