Choose the utility function primitive . Any other primitive with the same derivative differs by a constant ; this adds to the value function and does not alter the policy. Put and let be the stock fraction. The self-financing portfolio equation, including consumption withdrawals, is
For a time-independent infinite-horizon value function , the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation is
Scaling initial portfolio wealth and all consumption rates by the same positive number preserves admissibility and scales utility function by its th power. This homogeneity gives . In particular,
The consumption first-order condition and stock first-order condition give
The second derivatives of the optimized expressions are negative, so these are their global maximizers. Writing and substituting into the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation gives
Therefore
The given inequality is precisely , so the Merton consumption-investment problem value is . This derives the requested policy; no additional verification argument is needed here.
Use the primitive , as in Question 3, and the usual positive spot volatility convention . An additive utility function constant shifts both agents' value functions equally and does not affect their policies or the comparison. Set
The Itô formula applied to the stock price and the binary Brownian drift filter gives
Let denote the dollar stock holding. The separated state equations are
Both states use the same observed Brownian motion. In particular, their quadratic covariation is .
Let be the Bayesian value function. Its Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation is
The cross derivative is necessary: learning and portfolio wealth are correlated through the same observation shock. At a smooth, finite, strictly concave value, the optimal consumption and stock holding are
The number of shares is , and the wealth fraction is .
More explicitly, homogeneity gives , where . Then
The additional term is the learning hedge in a binary-drift investment model, a form of intertemporal hedging demand. Merely putting the Bayesian posterior mean drift into a constant-coefficient investment formula would omit it. Eliminating the controls gives the coefficient equation
The economic solution is selected by admissibility and the infinite-horizon value condition, rather than by an arbitrary solution of this ordinary differential equation.
For the comparison, now suppose and . Write , , and
When , the informed agent's Merton consumption-investment problem has value
These are the policies available to an agent who knows the true drift is .
For any admissible Bayesian policy, not only its optimum, define
The integration variable is throughout the accumulated utility function. Applying the Itô formula in the Bayesian observation filtration gives
where
The informed-agent Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation says . Maximizing the stock term at any excess drift gives
Since , this maximum increases with . The binary Brownian drift filter satisfies , and therefore
It follows that . Thus is a local supermartingale. Because , both accumulated utility function and are nonnegative. A nonnegative local supermartingale is a genuine supermartingale, by localization and the conditional Fatou lemma. This proves the requested assertion under the Bayesian probability law, without conditioning that law on the favorable drift.
Consequently
The monotone convergence theorem lets tend to infinity. Taking the supremum over Bayesian policies proves the maximal squared Sharpe ratio value bound
In particular this holds at the equal-prior state . No vanishing-terminal-value assumption is needed for this upper bound, because the terminal term is nonnegative and can simply be dropped.
The finite-value assumption is missing from the printed comparison. Without it, and the value inequality is trivial, but is not a finite supermartingale. For a concrete allowed example, take , , , and . Then and . For the informed agent, the constant stock fraction and consumption give
The time integral diverges, so his value is infinite. This is why the nontrivial finite-supermartingale proof above needs the stated qualification.
The Pontryagin maximum principle addresses optimization of an integral running reward, possibly with terminal reward, subject to a controlled differential equation, admissible control constraints and prescribed endpoint conditions. For a normal maximization problem with running reward , the Hamiltonian is ; the optimal control maximizes it pointwise, and the adjoint satisfies with the appropriate terminal transversality condition. State constraints require additional care when active.
Assume and . Here
The terminal stock is free and has no salvage reward, so an optimum with positive terminal stock has . For , maximization over gives whenever . Then
Set , so and . Integrating gives
The resulting is positive throughout, validating the interior control formula. Integrating the state equation yields
The state remains positive, so its nonnegativity constraint is inactive and the terminal condition is consistent. The reward is jointly concave in and the dynamics are linear, giving sufficiency of this solution. Alternatively the value function satisfies the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with this maximizing control. At zero price the optimal control is zero, obtained by a continuous limit; zero initial stock also gives zero extraction.
Normalize the constant relative risk aversion utility as . The printed specification of alone also permits an additive constant ; that would add to the value, so the stated homogeneity holds for the normalized value. Set
Multiplying initial wealth, the historical maximum, dollar investments, and consumption by multiplies every term of the wealth equation by , including the tax term. It maps admissible policies bijectively and multiplies the normalized reward by . Therefore the value scales as
The historical maximum means when initially .
Inside the state region , the maximum is locally constant. The Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation is
At , the finite-variation contribution in the Itô formula is . The high-water mark tax boundary condition is consequently
For an increasing, strictly concave function of wealth, optimizing the two controls gives
The consumption convex conjugate is
Substitution of the homogeneity derivatives gives the reduced equation and boundary condition
The controls in scaled variables are and .
Use the wealth-variable Legendre dual
Since , the inverse map satisfies and . Inserting into the reduced Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation gives a linear Euler equation
For the Euler differential equation operator on the left, its action on is . Write . Under , the particular solution is . For the nondegenerate case , the two characteristic roots are , with because and . Thus the general solution also contains .
Here and the relevant dual domain is . The inverse wealth ratio must have as . The particular solution and the negative-root term have derivatives tending to zero, whereas has an unbounded derivative unless . Hence the admissible dual solution has the claimed form
The quadratic-root formulation presupposes a nonzero market price of risk. If , the dual equation becomes first order; it is treated directly or by an appropriate nondegenerate limit rather than by assuming two quadratic roots.
The inverse map and the tax boundary provide two equations at :
Because , these become
Let . Eliminating gives . Also , since puts strictly between the two roots. The derivative boundary then gives . Therefore the constants are
There is an important admissibility qualification in the printed conclusion. With ,
The second term is negative, but decays faster than the first because . Direct differentiation at the boundary gives
A wealth-variable Legendre dual of a concave value must be a convex function. Thus the printed smooth tax-paying solution requires , with the limiting case allowed as a degenerate boundary. The assumptions and do not imply this: for example , , , , and give and , hence negative boundary dual curvature.
For higher tax the investor can avoid raising the historical maximum. The wealth-cap investment boundary replaces the tax-paying equality by , alongside . Solving these equations gives
These are the same constants with replaced by . More generally the admissible two-regime expression uses
in the constants, while the claimed formulas themselves describe the tax-paying regime. In the cap regime the portfolio volatility vanishes at and the consumption rate there is , so the wealth drift points inward and no new maximum is required. The remaining boundary inequality is , consistent with avoiding costly maximum increases. For , dual curvature is positive because the negative term in decays faster than the positive term. Thus this qualification repairs an actual missing parameter restriction rather than a TeX transcription error.
Use dollar holdings , including the traded index, and let . The Itô formula gives
Define the state-dependent correlation , , and constants . The self-financing portfolio with consumption has wealth equation
Since all these assets are traded and , the volatility map is invertible. It is useful to optimize over Brownian portfolio exposures
whose market price of risk vector is
Indeed . Put .
For , normalize constant relative risk aversion utility to . Scaling wealth, holdings, and consumption by leaves the index state unchanged and multiplies reward by . Thus
For a finite smooth value with , the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation, including the shared-noise cross derivative, is
The last term is essential: index changes and the component of wealth are correlated. The first-order conditions yield
Because , , and , the optimized portfolio contribution is
Substitution gives the requested second-order nonlinear equation
Recovering dollar holdings from the exposures gives the optimal controls
Only the index holding carries the extra intertemporal hedging demand, because the index is the source of state variation. The stock positions hedge their common exposure through the index.
The power transformation of a complete-market investment equation gives a useful further simplification. Let , and define
Expanding the squared term and substituting cancels the two terms. The power-transformed investment equation is linear:
Then and . A practical finite difference method solves this linear differential equation on an expanding truncated interval in , enforcing the economically relevant positive solution and checking domain and mesh convergence. If correlation approaches limits strictly inside and the corresponding , the constant-coefficient Merton consumption-investment problem gives endpoint approximations . Without such asymptotics one must determine appropriate growth/transversality conditions; arbitrary fixed endpoint values are not justified. The statement's smooth decreasing correlation alone does not ensure globally bounded market prices of risk or a finite value. Any numerical candidate must also satisfy admissibility and the investment value transversality condition.
The printed includes . In that case choose , whose scaling is additive:
There is no shared-noise cross derivative because . The logarithmic case is
Thus the dollar holdings are the preceding formulas with and the hedge term omitted. This linear differential equation can be solved by the same truncation and convergence strategy.
The PDF prints in the conditioning of the value function. Taken literally, nonnegative wealth and the state-price budget constraint force both wealth and consumption to remain zero, and the utility for has value . The meaningful value function underlying the subsequent requests uses ; the following calculation makes that source correction explicit.
Write . Differentiating the exponentially weighted consumption habit gives the habit-state dynamics
Multiplying initial wealth, initial habit, investments, and consumption by multiplies the wealth and habit paths by . The ratio is unchanged, while . Thus the homogeneous value is
This is a multiplicative habit utility model: higher habit makes utility more negative at fixed consumption.
Set , , and . The instantaneous reward is
For smooth increasing, strictly concave wealth value, the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation is
The effective consumption shadow price with habit changes from to . For , consumption maximization gives
For the supremum is infinite, and for its zero supremum is approached only as consumption tends to infinity; a finite interior optimum therefore requires . The portfolio maximum is .
Let , , and define
The homogeneity derivatives are
Consequently , and the reward conjugate is . The reduced habit equation is
For completeness its feedback controls are and .
The wealth-variable Legendre dual satisfies , , and . The effective shadow price becomes
Therefore the dual equation for multiplicative habit investment is
with . The dependence of the reward conjugate on and is the remaining nonlinearity.
When , habit is fixed and the equation becomes a linear Euler equation
The forcing is a pure power . Thus the Euler differential equation method gives a power particular solution plus the two homogeneous characteristic powers in the nondegenerate case. Economically, this is the Merton consumption-investment problem with effective relative risk aversion and a constant reward multiplier. Writing
its value and controls are
Indeed solves the dual equation, since its characteristic polynomial at equals . Unlike the case, the fixed habit creates no feedback coupling between the dual value and the shadow price of consumption.
The dynamic programming principle over a short interval gives
A first-order Taylor expansion of the value function gives
After subtracting , dividing by and taking the limit, the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation is
Completing the square in the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation shows that the minimizing feedback is
This is a linear-quadratic optimal control problem, so set . The equation and terminal condition become
This Riccati equation is separable and gives
Consequently the general optimal feedback law is
When is constant,
Along the corresponding optimal trajectory, , so the open-loop control is constant: for .
For a self-financing portfolio earning both running reward and terminal reward , , with no consumption withdrawals, Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation gives and the displayed constant risky fraction. The coefficient satisfies , , where . Its positive solution is . Risk aversion is ; increasing raises risky investment and can require borrowing.
For an observed finite-state continuous-time Markov chain with rate matrix , constant bank rate , and state-dependent stock drifts and positive volatilities , constant relative risk aversion utility gives . Set and . The Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation reduces to the displayed nonlinear algebraic system with . Its feedback controls are and .
A damped Newton method in the logarithmic variables preserves positivity. Solving these equations produces a candidate value; admissibility, stochastic-integral bounds and the investment value transversality condition still need verification.
Singular stochastic control Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
In singular stochastic control, a control is a finite-variation process rather than only a rate integrated against time. Its increments can have atoms or a part singular with respect to time. The Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation becomes a variational inequality with a constraint on directional derivatives of the value function.
For zero cash interest, constant excess drift , volatility , and both terminal and consumption utility , set and assume belongs to the image of a linear map . Let be the Moore-Penrose inverse and . Then , , so for , and for . The Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation has the displayed solution. Maximizing dollar investment and consumption are and . The resulting positive portfolio wealth is a geometric Brownian motion with a deterministic time-dependent drift, and finite-horizon moment bounds justify equality in verification.
When asset correlation varies with a traded market index, the index is both an asset and a state variable. Writing and optimizing Brownian portfolio exposures accounts for the cross derivative between wealth and . Power homogeneity reduces the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation to an ordinary differential equation in .
Stochastic control Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A stochastic control problem chooses an admissible control input using information available in a filtration to optimize an expected objective for a random dynamical system. Dynamic programming often characterizes its value function through a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation.
For , and terminal cost plus running cost , the displayed change of state gives . A quadratic value function has coefficient and additive noise cost . Minimizing its Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation gives the displayed control. The gain is unchanged if the additive noise is removed, illustrating certainty equivalence.
For a nonnegative classical solution of a finite-horizon Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with nonnegative running reward , the process is a local supermartingale under every admissible control. The Itô formula gives nonpositive drift because the chosen control cannot exceed the supremum in the equation. Stop where the stochastic integral becomes a true martingale, take expectations and apply the Fatou lemma. Nonnegativity prevents loss of a lower bound when removing the stops, giving the verification upper bound. A maximizing control attains the bound when its stopped reward processes are uniformly integrable.
A fee proportional to terminal portfolio wealth but reduced by accumulated portfolio quadratic variation changes the optimal risk exposure of a manager with constant relative risk aversion utility. Write , and assume is invertible. The fee process has drift and volatility . Its Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation therefore maximizes , giving . The fee increases effective relative risk aversion from to , independently of its positive scale .
There is also a direct global bound. Put , , and tilt probability by . Under this probability let be the stochastic exponential of . The terminal fee ratio satisfies . A nonnegative local martingale has expectation at most one. The Jensen inequality, applied to a concave positive power when and a convex negative power when , proves that the constant exposure maximizes expected CRRA utility. Effective risk aversion one uses logarithmic utility.
For increasing strictly concave wealth value , the dual is convex. At an interior optimum , , , and . This sign convention is the negative of the concave Legendre dual. It can turn the optimized portfolio term of a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation into a linear second derivative.