Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 40 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use column vectors for dollar holdings and put , and . The normalized state-price density isThe vector is the market price of risk. The density defines an equivalent risk-neutral measure, under which is Brownian motion and every stock has drift . A terminal claim with finite state-price cost is priced at . Nonsingularity of and the natural Brownian market information make this a complete market; in particular the optimal nonnegative payoff below can be replicated.
Let and . Apply the Itô formula to each log price, whose return variance is :Summing and dividing by proves the geometric stock index formulaThus , where . The factor applies to the whole bracket. The geometric average need not itself be a self-financing portfolio; its instantaneous drift is .
If is the dollar amount invested in stock , the bank account holds . The self-financing portfolio equation isEquivalently, gives . For share-holding notation replace by times the number of shares.
Static expected utility maximization uses the terminal budget . Since is an exogenous positive benchmark, differentiating in gives . An interior Lagrange multiplier for the budget therefore givesFor CRRA utility, write . Since , solving this marginal equation givesEvery positive lognormal moment is finite here, so the budget determines the constant uniquely. PutThenThis is also a sufficiency condition: concavity gives , and taking expectations and using the budget inequality proves global optimality.
To find the whole optimal process, set andSince , the moment-generating function of a normal distribution givesPricing the terminal payoff yields the explicit benchmark-relative power-utility portfolio wealthIts proportional diffusion coefficient is . Since the wealth diffusion coefficient for dollar fractions is , replication requiresUsing gives the requested fixed proportions:The drift matches the self-financing portfolio equation as well. Indeed, , so the drift of from the explicit formula isConsequently an equivalent form of the solution isThe bank account fraction is , with negative values representing borrowing. The first stock term is ordinary power-utility risk exposure, while the second hedges the random benchmark. At the logarithmic limit the benchmark term disappears, consistently with .