October 2010 Q5 (iii)

Discussion in 'CT8' started by baidshryans, Apr 17, 2016.

  1. baidshryans

    baidshryans Member

    Could you explain how the S1^(2) term has been expanded?

    Shouldn't there be a factor of half ?
     
  2. Steve Hales

    Steve Hales ActEd Tutor Staff Member

    In the Black-Scholes setting of the question we know that
    \[
    dS_{t}=S_{t}(r dt + \sigma dB_{t})
    \]
    to which the solution is:
    \[
    S_t=S_0 \exp\left\{\left( r - \frac{\sigma^2}{2}\right)t+\sigma B_t \right\}.
    \]
    You can use this to find an expression for \(S_{1}^{2}\), and then you'll probably want to use the MGF of the standard normal distribution to help find its expectation.
    Remember that
    \[
    E\left[ e^{2\sigma B_1}\right]=e^{\frac{1}{2}(4\sigma^2)}=e^{2\sigma^2}
    \]
    which might be where your factor of a half is missing?
     

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