Past exam of the stochastic differential equations and Brownian motion in complex analysis course of the University of Oxford / 2008 / A / 1 / c / Solution

Lévy's characterization of Brownian motion states that a real continuous local martingale $M$ with $M_0=0$ and quadratic variation $⟨M{⟩}_t=t$ is a standard Brownian motion with respect to its filtration. Equivalently, its increments are independent of the past and have centered normal distribution with variances equal to elapsed times.

Let $H_s=\mathrm{sgn}({\sup }_{r\le s}{B}_r-1)$. The running maximum is continuous and adapted, so $H$ is bounded and progressively measurable process. It has a predictable version for integration; changing its value at the single switching time does not change its stochastic integral. Thus $X=\int HdB$ is a continuous local martingale starting at zero. Since $H_s^2=1$,Lévy's characterization of Brownian motion yields $X$ is standard Brownian motion. The sign depends on the entire past through the running maximum, but the unit quadratic-variation rate is exactly what the characterization needs.