Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 39 2 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let be the unique equivalent martingale measure. The risk-neutral pricing formula isFor the usual nonnegative strike and maturities , the monotonic bank account gives . ThereforeThe second inequality follows directly since the conditional expectation of a positive part is at least both zero and the conditional expectation of its argument; it is also conditional Jensen's inequality. Taking expectations proves , the maturity monotonicity of calls with nonnegative strikes.
If , then pointwise; positive discounting and expectation prove monotonicity of a European call price in strike. For , the pointwise inequalitygives convexity of a European call price in strike after the same operations. HenceThe maturity assertion uses ; it need not hold for a negative strike. For example, in the deterministic complete market with , a negative-strike call has price , which decreases with . The monotonicity assertions are non-strict, as equality can occur.