Binary option

A binary option pays one fixed amount when a specified event occurs at maturity and zero otherwise.

A cash-at-maturity upper-barrier digital option pays a fixed amount if the stock touches an upper barrier by maturity. In the Black-Scholes model, write $a=\log (c/S_0)/\sigma$ and $b=-(r-{\sigma }^2/2)/\sigma$. Its unit-payoff price is $e^{-rT}$ times the linear-boundary Brownian first-passage distribution at $T$. This differs from paying at the hitting time, when the discount factor is random, and from an ordinary terminal-price digital option.

A contingent claim paying one at maturity if a specified price path has remained below an upper barrier, and zero otherwise. This survival payoff differs from a terminal digital put option, which tests only the terminal price. In the dividend-free Black-Scholes model, its value is the discount factor times the risk-neutral probability of avoiding the barrier, obtainable from the linear-boundary Brownian first-passage distribution.

A digital call option with strike $K$ pays one unit if $S_T\ge K$ and zero otherwise.

A barrier claim paying a fixed cash amount at the first time the stock reaches a higher level, provided this happens before expiry. In the Black-Scholes model, take $a=\log (c/S_0)/\sigma$ and $b=({\sigma }^2/2-\rho )/\sigma$. Its unit-cash price is ${\mathbb{E}}_Q[e^{-\rho T_{a,b}}{1}_{\{T_{a,b}\le T\}}]$, given by truncated discounted Brownian first passage. The effective square root $\sqrt{b^2+2\rho }=|\rho +{\sigma }^2/2|/\sigma$ is real for every real interest rate.

A digital put option with strike $K$ pays one unit if $S_T<K$ and zero otherwise. With these complementary boundary conventions, one digital call plus one digital put equals a zero-coupon bond paying one unit at maturity.

For a European put option with deterministic discount factor $D$ and an integrable terminal stock price, $P(K)=D{\mathbb{E}}_{\mathbb{Q}}[(K-S_T{)}^{+}]$. If $\mathbb{Q}(S_T=K)=0$, bounded difference quotients and the dominated convergence theorem give the displayed derivative, the price of a digital put option. At an atom, the left derivative is $D\mathbb{Q}(S_T<K)$ and the right derivative is $D\mathbb{Q}(S_T\le K)$, so the ordinary derivative need not exist.