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In the completed natural Brownian filtration, suppose $d{S}_t/S_t={\mu }_{t}dt+{\sigma }_{t}d{W}_t$ with ${\sigma }_t\ne 0$, and let $d{\zeta }_t=-{\zeta }_t(r_{t}dt+{\kappa }_{t}d{W}_t)$, ${\kappa }_t=({\mu }_t-r_t)/{\sigma }_t$. For an affordable nonnegative terminal claim $X$, represent the conditional-expectation martingale $N_t=\mathbb{E}[{\zeta }_{T}X\mid {\mathcal{F}}_t]$ as $d{N}_t=h_{t}d{W}_t$. Then $w_t=N_t/{\zeta }_t$ and the displayed dollar amount in the stock replicate $X$. The Itô product rule gives $d(\zeta w)=\zeta (\sigma \theta -\kappa w)dW$, proving the formula; share holdings are ${\theta }_t/S_t$.

A down-and-in claim with lower barrier $b$ pays a specified terminal payoff only if the stock reaches $b$ before maturity. Before activation its value solves a killed-domain pricing problem; at activation its value equals the ordinary terminal-payoff claim value.

A down-and-out claim expires worthless if the stock reaches a lower barrier before maturity. A matching down-and-in claim plus a down-and-out claim pays the ordinary terminal claim on every path; this is in-out parity.

A European call option gives its holder the right, without an obligation, to buy one unit of an underlying financial asset at the strike price $K$ on the expiry date $T$. European describes exercise timing, not geography: exercise is allowed only at $T$. Here the underlying is one stock share, $S_T$ is its price at expiry, and the financial payoff is expressed as a cash amount. Physical exercise delivers a share against payment of $K$; immediate resale gives the same net amount under the assumed frictionless market.

The holder exercises only when buying at the strike price is advantageous. Writing $x^{+}=\max (x,0)$ for the positive part, the terminal financial payoff isThe European call option is a reusable building block for claim replication: its financial payoff is zero below the strike price and rises by one unit for each unit of stock price above it. The corner at $K$ lets combinations of European call options construct other payoff shapes, as in static replication on a finite terminal support.

For strike price $K=100$, the following are deterministic calculations conditional on each displayed terminal stock price. They assign no probabilities to the three scenarios. The European put option has the opposite exercise right and the financial payoff $(K-S_T{)}^{+}$.

A financial payoff excludes the initial contract price. If the illustrative European call option costs $C_0=10$, its financial payoff at $S_T=120$ is $20$, and subtracting its initial cost gives $10$. If that cost is instead borrowed for one year at the constant continuously compounded interest rate $r=0.05$, the terminal net amount is $20-10e^{0.05}\approx 9.48728904$. At $S_T=80$ or $100$, the corresponding net amount is $-10e^{0.05}\approx -10.51271096$. Keeping all cash amounts at the same date avoids confusing a financial payoff with a financed gain.

Robert Shiller's Options Markets lecture, Yale ECON 252 (2011) introduces these exercise rights and payoff shapes.

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 $T$.

A traded claim or instrument carrying a current price and future payments or resale value. In a one-period financial market, its terminal payoff is a random variable and a portfolio combines payoffs linearly through its asset holdings. A stock, a zero-coupon bond and a bank account are basic examples. Dividends require treating the full gain process rather than only resale prices.

For exponential utility $(1-e^{-ax})/a$ on unrestricted terminal portfolio wealth in the Black-Scholes model, the optimal dollar holding in the stock is the displayed deterministic amount. Set $\vartheta =(\mu -\rho )/\sigma$ and let $W^Q=W+\vartheta t$ be the Brownian motion under the risk-neutral measure. The terminal optimizer is $X^{\ast }=w_0{e}^{\rho T}+\vartheta W_T^Q/a$. Its marginal utility is proportional to the state-price density, and the concave supporting-tangent inequality proves global optimality under the state-price budget constraint. The expected utility at the optimum is $(1-\exp (-a{w}_0{e}^{\rho T}-{\vartheta }^{2}T/2))/a$. A nonnegative-wealth constraint changes this optimizer.

A forward start option whose call option strike is fixed at time $T_1$ as $\lambda S_{T_1}$, with expiry $T_2>T_1$ and $\lambda >0$. Its terminal financial payoff depends on the intermediate stock price as well as the final price. Two paths ending at the same price can therefore have different payoffs, so a recombining stock tree must retain enough history to value the contract.

In a homogeneous dividend-free Black-Scholes model, let $c(1,\lambda ,T_2-T_1)$ be the European call option price with current stock one and strike $\lambda$ over the remaining duration. Homogeneity gives value $S_{T_1}c(1,\lambda ,T_2-T_1)$ when the strike is fixed. The discounted stock is a martingale, so risk-neutral pricing before that date givesThe same argument holds in a homogeneous binomial options pricing model with the corresponding remaining-step call value. It depends on the normalized future pricing rule being independent of the stock level at the fixing date.

A financial option whose strike or other exercise terms are fixed at a specified future date, with expiry later still. A forward-start call option pays the positive part of terminal stock price minus that future strike. Specifying the rule for fixing the strike is part of defining the contingent claim.

For positive stocks satisfying $d{S}_t^i/S_t^i={\sum }_j{\sigma }_{ij}d{W}_t^j+{\mu }_{i}dt$, let $q=n^{-1}1$ and $V=\sigma {\sigma }^T$. The Itô formula givesThus its volatility is ${\sigma }^{T}q$. This geometric average is generally not the value of the constant equal-weight self-financing portfolio: its instantaneous drift is $q^T\mu -\mathrm{tr}(V)/(2n)+q^{T}Vq/2$, whereas the fully invested equal-weight portfolio has drift $q^T\mu$.

A European option paying the positive part of the logarithm of terminal stock price divided by a positive strike $K$. In the dividend-free Black-Scholes model, that logarithm has a normal distribution under the risk-neutral measure. The Gaussian positive-part expectation gives $V=e^{-r\tau }[m\Phi (m/a)+a\varphi (m/a)]$, where $m=\log (S/K)+(r-{\sigma }^2/2)\tau$ and $a=\sigma \sqrt{\tau }$. This differs from the untruncated logarithmic payoff and from the payoff $S_T\log S_T$.

For $\alpha >0$, $\sigma >0$, this positive stochastic process is the exponential of an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. The Itô formula givesThe mean level of the logarithm differs from $\mu$ by the quadratic variation correction. In a stock model, specifying this under a physical probability measure does not by itself specify risk-neutral pricing. A non-dividend-paying traded stock has drift $rS$ under a risk-neutral measure; a different drift under that measure would require a corresponding dividend or carry convention.

For a stock with observed dynamics $d{S}_t/S_t=\sigma d{\hat{W}}_t+\sigma m_{t}dt$ and constant riskless interest rate $r$, the finite-horizon pricing density for Gaussian drift learning with $k=r/\sigma$ gives ${\zeta }_t=e^{-rt}{D}_t$. The terminal logarithmic utility condition $1/w_T^{\ast }=\lambda {\zeta }_T$ and the state-price budget constraint give $\lambda =1/w_0$. Replication then gives $w_t^{\ast }=w_0/{\zeta }_t$ at every time. The Itô formula for $1/\zeta$ makes the optimal dollar stock fraction $(m_t-r/\sigma )/\sigma$. Its finite expected log return follows from finite posterior second moments on finite horizons.

A path-dependent contingent claim whose payoff depends on the running minimum or maximum of the underlying stock. Floating-strike calls and puts pay $S_T-{\min }_{u\le T}{S}_u$ and ${\max }_{u\le T}{S}_u-S_T$, respectively. Fixed-strike versions use positive parts of the difference between a running extremum and a specified strike. A sufficient pricing state contains the current price and the relevant running extremum.

Mathematical finance uses probability theory, linear algebra and mathematical optimization to study financial markets, portfolio decisions and contingent claim prices. One question asks which portfolio best serves a specified objective; another asks what price a contingent claim must have to exclude arbitrage. The latter can have an exact answer even when future stock prices are uncertain.

The central idea is claim replication: construct a self-financing portfolio delivering the same financial payoff as a contract in every possible state. The law of one price then identifies the contract's price with the portfolio's initial cost. The binomial market makes this beautiful connection between uncertainty and linear algebra visible using just two equations. Risk-neutral pricing expresses the same cost as a discounted expectation.

The one-step example below fixes today's stock price at 100, terminal prices at 120 or 80, and the bank account's gross growth factor at 1.05. A European call option with strike price 100 pays 20 or zero. Its replicating portfolio in a binomial market costs $250/21$, independently of the physical up probability, provided both states remain possible. These are conclusions within the specified financial market model.

For a non-dividend-paying stock and nonnegative deterministic interest, the European call lower bound is $C_E\ge S-XB$, where $B\le 1$ is the zero-coupon bond price. This is at least the in-the-money exercise payoff $S-X$; the call also preserves the possibility of avoiding payment of the strike. Positive interest makes the comparison strict when exercise would have positive payoff. At zero interest there can be indifference, and with negative interest the statement can fail: a deterministic stock $S_u=S_0{e}^{ru}$ with $r<0$ can give a larger payoff by immediate exercise.

For $v,m\ge 0$, define $F(v,m)=\mathbb{E}[(e^{-v/2+\sqrt{v}Y}-m{)}^{+}]$, where $Y$ has the standard normal distribution. For $v,m>0$, completing the square in the standard normal density giveswhere $\Phi$ is the standard normal distribution function. The boundary values are $F(0,m)=(1-m{)}^{+}$ and $F(v,0)=1$. Multiplying by the current stock price produces a zero-interest Black-Scholes formula with total variance $v$ and relative strike $m$.

Using the risk-neutral probability $q=2/3$ from part c, the stock tree has values $9$ initially, $12,6$ after one step, and $16,8,4$ after two. The American put option has terminal financial payoffs $0,1,5$. Work backwards, comparing the immediate exercise payoff with its discounted continuation value.

At $S_1=12$, continuation is $(3/10)(2\cdot 0+1)=3/10$, exceeding the zero exercise payoff. At $S_1=6$, continuation is $(3/10)(2\cdot 1+5)=21/10$, while exercise pays three. Therefore exercise at the down node $S_1=6$ and continue at $S_1=12$. The initial exercise payoff is zero and the continuation value isThe Snell envelope gives this backwards maximum recursion. For comparison, restricting exercise to expiry would give $81/100$, so early exercise genuinely adds value.

For the forward-start call option, the strike is fixed by the intermediate stock price. The four path payoffs areThe same final price eight has different payoffs on the two middle paths, so one must retain the history at expiry. At time one, risk-neutral pricing gives $C_1^u=(3/10)(2\cdot 4)=12/5$ and $C_1^d=(3/10)(2\cdot 2)=6/5$. ThusEquivalently, its value at the strike-fixing date is $S_1/5$ by homogeneity, so the martingale property of discounted stock prices gives the initial value $S_0/5$.

Take the terminal financial payoff $f(S)=S$. The function $V(S,t)=S$ satisfies the Black-Scholes equation: its time derivative and second stock derivative vanish, while $rS{V}_S-rV=rS-rS=0$. It also has the correct terminal value. Part a therefore givesThus the discounted stock is a martingale. The explicit lognormal distribution in part b supplies the necessary finite expectation, so here this is a true martingale identity.