Put-call are convex under no arbitrage

Discussion in 'CT8' started by Son Isfa, Jun 12, 2017.

  1. Son Isfa

    Son Isfa Member

    Show that under no arbitrage assumption, the PUT option price is a convex function of the underlying asset price. Is this true for the CALL option? What can you say about the delta of these options?
     
  2. vgarg

    vgarg Member

    I am doing this for European call option you can easily replicate the same for the European put option.
    The Black-Scholes-Merton result is

    \begin{equation} c = S_0N(d_1) - Ke^{-rT}N(d_2) \tag{1} \end{equation}

    Where:
    \(c\) : Price of European Call option
    \(S_0\): Price of underlying asset today
    \(K\): Strike Price or Exercise Price
    \(r\): expected return, risk free return
    \(T\): time to maturity of the option
    \(\sigma \): stock volatility
    \(N(.)\): CDF of standard normal distribution

    \(d_1 = \dfrac{\ln(S_0e^{rT}/K) +\sigma ^2T/2 }{\sigma \sqrt{T}}\), \(d_2 = \dfrac{\ln(S_0e^{rT}/K) -\sigma ^2T/2 }{\sigma \sqrt{T}}\)

    Note that following holds

    \(d_1 = d_2 + \sigma \sqrt{T}\)

    \(N'(x) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\exp(-\frac{x^2}{2}) \quad \forall x\in \mathcal{R}\)

    By the above two observations lets first establish some relationship between \(N'(d_1)\) and \(N'(d_2)\).

    \begin{align} N'(d_1) &= N'(d_2+\sigma \sqrt{T}) \\ &= \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\exp\left (-\frac{(d_2+\sigma \sqrt{T})^2}{2}\right ) \\ &= \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\exp\left (-\frac{d_2^2}{2}-\frac{\sigma^2 T}{2}-d_2\sigma \sqrt{T}\right )\\ &= \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\exp\left (-\frac{d_2^2}{2}\right )\exp\left (-\left (\frac{\sigma^2 T}{2}+d_2\sigma \sqrt{T}\right )\right)\\ &= N'(d_2)\exp\left (-\left (\frac{\sigma^2 T}{2}+d_2\sigma \sqrt{T}\right )\right) \tag{2} \end{align}

    Now by using the expression of \(d_2\) above we the following

    \begin{align} -\left (\frac{\sigma^2 T}{2}+d_2\sigma \sqrt{T}\right ) &= -\ln\left(\frac{S_0e^{rT}}{K}\right) \\ \Leftrightarrow \exp\left (-\left (\frac{\sigma^2 T}{2}+d_2\sigma \sqrt{T}\right )\right) &= \frac{K}{S_0e^{rT}} \end{align}

    By substituting the above expression in (2) we get

    \begin{align} S_0N'(d_1) = Ke^{-rT}N'(d_2) \tag{3}\end{align}

    Now let's show that \(c\) is convex in \(S_0\) i.e. the price of underlying asset

    \begin{align*} \frac{\partial c}{\partial S_0} &= S_0N'(d_1)\frac{\partial d_1}{\partial S_0} + N(d_1) - ke^{-rT}N'(d_2)\frac{\partial d_2}{\partial S_0}\\ &= S_0N'(d_1)\frac{\partial d_1}{\partial S_0} + N(d_1) - ke^{-rT}N'(d_2)\frac{\partial d_1}{\partial S_0}\\ &= N(d_1) + \frac{\partial d_1}{\partial S_0}(S_0N'(d_1)-Ke^{-rT}N'(d_2)) \\ &= N(d_1) \end{align*}

    The above expression is the delta of european call.

    \begin{align*} \frac{\partial ^2 c}{\partial S_0^2} &= N'(d_1)\frac{\partial d_1}{\partial S_0}\\ &= \frac{N'(d_1)}{S_0\sigma \sqrt{T}} \end{align*}

    Since the second partial derivative of \(c\) wrt \(S_0\) is always positive therefore \(c\) is convex in \(S_0\)
     
    Harashima Senju likes this.

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