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Use a strictly positive bank account as numéraire, and write all prices and payoffs in discounted units. There are $d$ risky assets with deterministic initial price vector $S_0$, terminal price vector $S_1\in L^2(P)$, and gains $Y=S_1-S_0$. A self-financing portfolio with initial capital $x$ and constant risky holdings $\theta$ has discounted terminal wealth $x+{\theta }^{T}Y$. The initial amount in the bank account is $x-{\theta }^T{S}_0$, so $x$ denotes total initial capital, not just the cash holding. Assume the usual absence of arbitrage, and hence existence of an equivalent martingale measure; wherever a general probability space is used below, explicitly assume that such a measure exists and makes the asset payoffs integrable.

The attainable claims are precisely the linear subspaceThe finite-dimensional subspace is closed, so every square-integrable contingent claim $H$ has a unique orthogonal projection onto $\mathcal{A}$. This is its optimal one-period least-squares hedging payoff. Holdings are unique after redundant assets have been removed. Putand suppose the remaining covariance matrix $C$ is invertible. Expanding the squared error givesFirst minimize over $x$, then complete the square in $\theta$. ThusThe residual $L=H-x_{\ast }-{\theta }_{\ast }^{T}Y$ satisfiesIndeed, every other squared error equals this minimum plusThis proves optimality, and also shows that zero error is equivalent to attainability of a European contingent claim. If initial capital $x$ is prescribed instead, the normal equations for linear least squares give $\mathbb{E}[Y{Y}^T]\theta =\mathbb{E}[Y(H-x)]$; one must not use the free-capital formula without this adjustment.

A dominated martingale measure is a probability measure $Q\ll P$ such that ${\mathbb{E}}_{Q}Y=0$. Its Radon-Nikodym derivative $Z$ satisfies $Z\ge 0$, ${\mathbb{E}}_{P}Z=1$, and ${\mathbb{E}}_P[ZY]=0$. An equivalent martingale measure additionally requires $Z>0$ almost surely. Every integrable attainable claim $H=x+{\theta }^{T}Y$ then has price $x={\mathbb{E}}_{Q}H$, independent of which such measure is chosen. For an unattainable contingent claim, different dominated martingale measures can give different prices; least-squares approximation chooses a projection criterion rather than exact replication.

Write $Y=m+M$, where $M=Y-m$ is the centered martingale part of the one-period gains. The minimal martingale measure in a one-period market changes the means of the traded gains to zero while preserving all square-integrable mean-zero directions $L$ orthogonal to $M$. Its candidate density isDirect computation gives ${\mathbb{E}}_P{Z}_{\ast }=1$ and ${\mathbb{E}}_P[Z_{\ast }Y]=m-C{C}^{-1}m=0$. If ${\mathbb{E}}_{P}L=0$ and ${\mathbb{E}}_P[ML]=0$, then ${\mathbb{E}}_P[Z_{\ast }L]=0$, as required. Conversely, an $L^2$ density with this preservation property is orthogonal to the orthogonal complement of $\mathrm{span}\{1,M_1,\dots ,M_d\}$, so it lies in that span. Its normalization and martingale constraints force exactly $Z_{\ast }$. Moreover,Every other square-integrable signed pricing density has the form $Z_{\ast }+D$, with $D$ orthogonal to $1$ and $Y$, hence to $Z_{\ast }$. Thereforeso the minimal density is also the minimum-norm one-period pricing weight. This coincidence concerns one period; it is not an unrestricted assertion about dynamic hedging models.

Positivity needs checking. If $Z_{\ast }>0$ it defines an equivalent martingale measure; if merely $Z_{\ast }\ge 0$, it defines a dominated martingale measure. Otherwise it defines only a signed martingale measure. For example, take $S_0=2$ and $Y=-1,1,3$ with physical probabilities $1/100,89/100,10/100$. Then $m=59/50$, $C=1019/2500$, and $Z_{\ast }=-4350/1019$ in the third state. There is nonetheless an equivalent martingale measure assigning probabilities $3/5,3/10,1/10$, whose mean gain is zero. Thus absence of arbitrage does not guarantee positivity of the least-squares density, and a least-squares initial cost need not be an arbitrage-free price for an unattainable payoff.

Finally prove completeness and uniqueness of dominated martingale measures. Suppose first that every bounded contingent claim is attainable. For any event $A$, replicate $1_A=x_A+{\theta }_A^{T}Y$. Under any dominated martingale measure, $Q(A)=x_A$. Thus all such measures agree on every event. Existence follows from our no-arbitrage assumption, giving uniqueness.

Conversely, fix an equivalent martingale measure $Q_0$, and let $k=\dim \mathcal{A}$. If the probability space admits $k+1$ disjoint events $A_1,\dots ,A_{k+1}$ of positive probability, choose a basis $a_1,\dots ,a_k$ of $\mathcal{A}$, including $1$. The $k\times (k+1)$ matrix with entries ${\mathbb{E}}_{Q_0}[a_i{1}_{A_j}]$ has a nonzero null vector $(c_j)$. Consequently the bounded, nonzero random variablesatisfies ${\mathbb{E}}_{Q_0}h=0$ and ${\mathbb{E}}_{Q_0}[hY]=0$. For $0<|\epsilon |<1/\Vert h{\Vert }_{\infty }$, defineThese are distinct equivalent martingale measures, because their densities are positive and their gain moments remain zero. Thus uniqueness rules out such a partition. A probability space with no $k+1$ disjoint positive-probability events consists, modulo null sets, of at most $k$ atoms: repeatedly split any non-atomic positive event to obtain a larger finite partition. On $N$ atoms the payoff space has dimension $N$, while $\mathcal{A}$ has dimension $k\le N$. Hence $N=k$ and $\mathcal{A}$ is the whole payoff space. Every contingent claim is attainable. This provesHere completeness means all bounded claims, or all square-integrable claims in the $L^2$ formulation. The existence/no-arbitrage hypothesis matters: on a one-state space, cash and a stock with a sure positive discounted gain span every payoff, but no dominated martingale measure can make that gain have zero mean.

Put $h=S_0-\mu /R$. The initial capital of the one-period quadratic hedge isDefine the minimum-norm one-period pricing weightIt is square integrable, and $\mathbb{E}[(S_1-\mu ){\xi }_1]=c$, soThe weight depends only on the asset prices and their first two moments, not on the claim. It can be negative, so this identity alone does not supply an equivalent martingale measure or a positive state-price density.