Put option

A put option gives its holder the right to sell an underlying asset at a specified strike price. A European put option may be exercised only at maturity, whereas an American put option permits earlier exercise.

A European put option gives its holder the right, without an obligation, to sell one unit of an underlying financial asset at the strike price $K$ only on the expiry date $T$. For one stock share, its terminal financial payoff is the positive partFor strike price $K=100$, terminal stock prices $80$, $100$, and $120$ give financial payoffs $20$, $0$, and $0$, respectively. At $S_T=80$, selling for $100$ rather than the market price $80$ supplies the difference $20$; at $S_T=120$, the holder can let the right expire. Equality at $S_T=100$ gives zero net exercise value. The European call option example plots both financial payoffs on the same axes.

Combining a European put option with the underlying stock share produces the terminal amount $S_T+(K-S_T{)}^{+}=\max (S_T,K)$. Its floor at the strike price is why a European put option can describe protection against a fall in terminal stock value. The protection has an initial cost and lasts to the specified expiry; the terminal floor alone says nothing about the financial return. Put-call parity replicates this same amount with a European call option and a zero-coupon bond.

Using the put-call parity example's price $P_0=10+100e^{-0.05}-100\approx 5.12294245$, the cost financed for one year at interest rate $r=0.05$ grows to $P_0{e}^{0.05}=100-90e^{0.05}\approx 5.38560133$. The terminal net amount is therefore approximately $14.61439867$ when $S_T=80$, and $-5.38560133$ when $S_T=100$ or $120$. These computations use the unrounded price and distinguish the financial payoff from the financed gain. Unlike an American put option, a European put option supplies no right to exercise before $T$.

An American put has exercise payoff $(K-S_n{)}^{+}$. In a finite binomial market, backward option pricing compares that payoff with the discounted risk-neutral continuation value at every node.

For risk-neutral stock dynamics $dS=(r-\delta )Sdt+\sigma SdW$, with $r>0$ and $\sigma >0$, let ${\beta }_{-}<0$ solve ${\sigma }^2\beta (\beta -1)/2+(r-\delta )\beta -r=0$. A fixed downward trigger $L\in (0,X)$ gives continuation value $(X-L)(S/L{)}^{{\beta }_{-}}$ for $S>L$. Optimizing over the trigger, or imposing smooth fit, gives the displayed boundary. The optimal value equals $X-S$ below $S^{\ast }$ and the continuation expression above. A verification argument uses its payoff majorization and nonpositive discounted generator. At $r=0$ and $\delta \ge 0$, the perpetual value is $X$ for positive spot, approached by triggers tending to zero rather than attained at a positive finite trigger.

Here $\Delta =\sqrt{(r-\delta -{\sigma }^2/2{)}^2+2r{\sigma }^2}$. Implicit differentiation of the negative-root equation gives $d{\beta }_{-}/d\delta =-{\beta }_{-}/\Delta >0$. Differentiating $S^{\ast }=X{\beta }_{-}/({\beta }_{-}-1)$ gives the displayed negative derivative. A higher proportional dividend yield lowers risk-neutral stock growth and makes waiting for lower stock prices more attractive to the put holder.