Past exam of the mathematical models of financial derivatives course of the University of Oxford / 2017 / 2 / b / Solution

Under the risk-neutral measure, write $Z\sim N(0,1)$, $a=\sigma \sqrt{\tau }$, and $m=\log (S/K)+(r-{\sigma }^2/2)\tau$. Then $\log (S_T/K)=m+aZ$ and $d_{-}=m/a$. By risk-neutral pricing, this log-call option has value $e^{-r\tau }\mathbb{E}[(m+aZ{)}^{+}]$.

Let $\varphi$ and $\Phi$ denote the standard normal density and standard normal distribution function. The Gaussian positive-part expectation follows by integration:because ${\varphi }^{\prime }(z)=-z\varphi (z)$. ThereforeFor $\tau =0$ take the continuous terminal limit $(\log (S/K){)}^{+}$.