Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 39 6 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Let and be predictable holdings in the stock and account, with the stochastic integrability needed for a self-financing portfolio. Then and . The Itô product rule and self-financing identity giveSince and , the finite-variation term is zero. Thereforeand the deflated wealth is a local martingale.
For zero-capital nonnegative wealth under a local deflator, a nonnegative local martingale is a supermartingale, by localization and the Conditional Fatou lemma. Under the required nonnegative-wealth condition, and starts at zero, so . Thus almost surely at every fixed . Strict positivity of gives almost surely. Taking a countable intersection over rational times and then using continuous wealth paths strengthens this toThis argument only needs the local deflator, so it remains valid without promoting to a true martingale.