In this section we consider the fundamental notion of
no-arbitrage. An arbitrage opportunity arises if it is possible to make a riskless profit.
In an ideal financial market, in which all investors dispose of
the same pieces of information and in which all investors can
react instantaneously, there should not be any arbitrage
opportunity. Since otherwise each investor would try to realize
the riskless profit instantaneously. The resulting transactions
would change the prices of the involved financial instruments such
that the arbitrage opportunity disappears.
Additionally to no-arbitrage we presume in the remaining chapter
that the financial market fulfills further simplifying assumptions
which are in this context of minor importance and solely serve to
ease the argumentation. If these assumptions hold we speak of a
perfect financial market.
ASSUMPTION (perfect financial market)
There are no arbitrage opportunities, no transaction costs,
no taxes, and no restrictions on short selling. Lending rates
equal borrowing rates and all securities are perfectly divisible.
The assumption of a perfect financial market is sufficient to
determine the value of future and forward contracts as well as some important
relations between the prices of some types of
options. Above all no mathematical model for the
price of the financial instrument is needed. However, in order to
determine the value of options more than only economic assumptions
are necessary. A detailed mathematical modelling becomes
inevitable. Each mathematical approach though has to be in line
with certain fundamental arbitrage relations being developed in
this chapter. If the model implies values of future and forward
contracts or option prices which do not fulfill these relations
the model's assumptions must be wrong.
An important conclusion drawn from the assumption of a perfect
financial market and thus from no-arbitrage will be used
frequently in the proofs to come. It is the fact that two
portfolios which have at a certain time
the same value must
have the same value at a prior time
as well. Due to its
importance we will further illustrate this reasoning. We proceed
from two portfolios
and
consisting of arbitrary financial
instruments. Their value in time
will be denoted by
and
respectively. For any fixed point of time
, we
assume that
independently of the prior time
values of each financial instrument contained in
and
For
any prior point of time
we assume without loss of generality
that
In time
an investor can construct
without own financial resources a portfolio which is a combination
of
and
by buying one unit of every instrument of
selling one unit of every instrument of
(short selling) and by
investing the difference
at a
fixed rate
The combined portfolio has at time
a value of
i.e. the investor has no initial costs. At time
the part of
the combined portfolio which is invested at rate
has the
compounded value
and hence the combined portfolio has a value of
if
The investor made a riskless gain by investing
in the combined portfolio which contradicts the no-arbitrage
assumption. Therefore, it must hold
i.e.
The previous reasoning can be used to determine the unknown value
of a financial derivative. For this, a portfolio
is
constructed which contains instruments with known price along with
one unit of the derivative under investigation. Portfolio
will
be compared to another portfolio
, called the duplicating
portfolio, which contains
exclusively instruments with known prices. Since the duplicating
portfolio
is constructed such that for certain it has the same
value at a fixed point of time
as portfolio
the
no-arbitrage assumption implies that both portfolios must have
the same value at any prior point of time. The value of the
financial derivative can thus be computed at any time
We illustrate this procedure in the following example of a forward
contract.
Theorem 3.1
We consider a long forward contract to buy an object which has a
price of

at time

Let

be the delivery price, and let

be the maturity date.

denotes the value of the
long forward contract at time

as a function of the current
price

and the time to maturity

We assume
constant interest rates

during the time to maturity.
- If the underlying object does not pay any dividends and does not
involve any costs during the time to maturity
then it holds
 |
(3.1) |
The forward price is equal to
- If during the time to maturity the underlying pays at discrete time points
dividends or involves any costs whose current time
discounted total
value is equal to
then it holds
 |
(3.2) |
The forward price is equal to
- If the underlying involves continuous costs at rate
then it holds
 |
(3.3) |
The forward price is equal to
Proof:
For simplicity we assume the underlying object to be a
stock paying either discrete dividend yields whose
value discounted to time
is
or paying a continuous
dividend yield at rate
In the latter case the stock involves
continuous costs equal to
The
investor having a long position in the stock gains dividends (as
negative costs) at rate
but simultaneously loses interests at
rate
since he invested his capital in the stock instead of in
a bond with a fixed interest rate. In place of stocks, bonds,
currencies or other simple instruments can be considered as well.
1. We consider at time
the following two portfolios
and
:
- Portfolio
:
- One long forward contract on a stock with delivery
price
, maturing in time
.
One long zero bond with face value
,
maturing in time
.
- Portfolio
:
- A long position in one unit of the stock.
At maturity
portfolio
contains a zero bond of value
Selling this zero bond for
the obligation to buy the stock for
can be fulfilled. Following these transactions portfolio
consists as well as portfolio
of one unit of the stock. Thus
both portfolios have at time
the same value and must
therefore, due to the no-arbitrage assumption, have the same
value at any time
prior to
 |
(3.4) |
since the value of the zero bond at time
is given by
discounting
at rate
The forward price is
by definition the solution of
2. We consider at time
the two portfolios
and
as given
above and add one position to portfolio
- Portfolio
:
- A long position in one unit of the stock and
one short position of size
in a zero bond with interest
rate
(lending an amount of money of
).
At maturity
the dividend yields of the stock in portfolio
which compounded to time
amount to
are used to
pay back the bond. Thus, both portfolios
and
consist again
of one unit of the stock, and therefore they must have the same
value at any time
 |
(3.5) |
The forward price results as in part 1 from the definition.
3. If the stock pays dividends continuously at a rate
then
the reasoning is similar as in part 2. Once again, we consider at
time
two portfolios
and
And again,
is left
unchanged,
is now composed of the following position:
- Portfolio
:
- A long position in
stocks.
Reinvesting the dividends yields continuously in the stock
portfolio
consists again of exactly one stock at time
Heuristically, this can be illustrated as follows: In the time
interval
the stock pays approximately, for a small
a dividend of
Thus, the
current total amount of stocks in the portfolio,
pays a total dividend yield of
which is reinvested in the stock. Assuming
that the stock price does not change significantly in the interval
i.e.
portfolio
contains in time
stocks. The above reasoning can be done exactly by taking the
limit
and it can be shown that portfolio
contains at any time
between
and
exactly
stocks. That is, for
portfolio
is composed
of exactly one stock. The same reasoning as in part 1 leads to the
conclusion that portfolio
and
must have the same value at
any time
. Thus, we have
 |
(3.6) |
where we have to set
The forward price results as in
part 1 from the definition.
Example 3.1
We consider a long forward contract on a 5 year bond which is
currently traded at a price of 900 EUR. The delivery price is
910 EUR, the time to maturity of the forward contract is one
year. The coupon payments of the bond of 60 EUR occur after 6 and 12 months
(the latter shortly before maturity of the forward contract). The
continuously compounded annual interest rates for 6 and 12 months are 9%
and 10% respectively. In this example we have
 |
(3.7) |
Thus, the value of the forward contract is given by
 |
(3.8) |
The value of the respective short position in the forward
contract is +35.05. The price

of the forward contract is
equal to

Example 3.2
Consider a long forward contract to buy 1000 Dollar. If the
investor buys the 1000 Dollar and invests this amount in a
American bond, the American interest rate can be interpreted
as a dividend yield

which is continuously paid. Let

be the
home interest rate. The investment involves costs

which are the difference between the American and the home
interest rate. Denoting the dollar exchange rate by

the
price of the forward contract is then given by
 |
(3.9) |
While for

a report

results, for

a
backwardation

results. If

and the delivery
price is chosen to equal the current exchange rate, i.e.

then the value of the forward contract is
Buying the forward contract at a price of

is thus more expensive
than buying the dollars immediately for the same price since in
the former case the investor can invest the money up to time

in a domestic bond paying an interest rate which is higher than the
American interest rate.
The following result states that forward and future contracts with
the same delivery price and the same time to maturity are equal,
if interest rates are constant during the contract period. We will
use the fact that by definition forward and future contracts do
not cost anything if the delivery price is chosen to be equal to
the current price of the forward contract respectively the price
of the future contract.
Theorem 3.2
If interest rates are constant during contract period, then
forward and future prices are equal.
Proof:
We proceed from the assumption that the future
contract is agreed on at time 0, and that is has a time to
maturity of
days. We assume that profits and losses are
settled (marked to market) on a daily basis at a daily interest
rate of
. While the forward price at the end of day 0 is
denoted by
the future price at the end of day
is denoted by
The goal is to show that
For that we construct two portfolios again:
- Portfolio
:
- A long position in
forward contracts with
delivery price
and maturity date
A long position in a zero bond with face value
maturing in
days.
- Portfolio
:
- A long position in futures contracts with
delivery price
and maturity date
. The contracts are
bought daily such that the portfolio contains at the end of the
-th day exactly
future contracts
(
).
A long position in a zero bond with face value
maturing in
days.
Purchasing a forward or a future contract does not cost anything
since their delivery prices are set to equal the current forward
or future price. Due to the marking to market procedure the holder
of portfolio
receives from day
to day
for each
future contract an amount of
which can possibly be
negative (i.e. he has to pay).
At maturity, i.e. at the end of day
the zero bond of
portfolio
is sold at the face value
to fulfill
the terms of the forward contract and to buy
stocks at
a the delivery price
Then
contains exclusively these
stocks and has a value of
Following, we show that
portfolio
has the same value.
At the beginning of day
portfolio
contains
future contracts, and the holder receives due to the marking to
market procedure the amount
which can
possibly be negative. During the day he increases his long
position in the future contracts at zero costs such that the
portfolio contains
future contracts at the end of
the day. The earnings at day
compounded to the maturity date
have a value of:
 |
(3.10) |
At maturity the terms of the future contracts are fulfilled due to
the marking to market procedure. All profits and losses compounded
to day
have a value of:
 |
(3.11) |
Together with the zero bond portfolio
has at day
a value
of
since at maturity the future price
and the price
of
the underlying are obviously equal.
Hence, both portfolios have at day
the same value and thus due
to the no-arbitrage assumption their day 0 values must be equal
as well. Since the forward contract with delivery price
has a
value of 0 at day 0 due to the definition of the forward price,
the value of portfolio
is equal to the value of the zero bond,
i.e. F (face value
discounted to day 0).
Correspondingly, the
futures contained in portfolio
have at the end of day 0 a value of 0 due to the definition of the
future price. Again, the value of portfolio
reduces to the
value of the zero bond. The latter has a value of
(face
value
discounted to day 0). Putting things
together, we conclude that
Now, we want to proof some relationship between
option prices using similar methods. The most
elementary properties are summarized in the following remark
without a proof. For that, we need the notion of the intrinsic value of an option.
Definition 3.1 (Intrinsic Value)
The
intrinsic value of a call option
at time

is given by

the intrinsic value of a
put option is given by

If the intrinsic value of
an option is positive we say that the option is
in the
money. If

then the option is
at the money. If the intrinsic value is
negative, then the option is said to be
out of the
money.
Remark 3.1
Options satisfy the following elementary relations.

and

denote the time

value of a call and a put with delivery price

and maturity
date

, if

is the time to maturity and the price of
the underlying is

i.e.
- Option prices are non negative since an exercise only takes
place if it is in the interest of the holder. An option gives
the right to exercise. The holder is not obligated to do so.
- American and European options have the same value at maturity
since in
they give the same rights to the holder. At
maturity
the value of the option is equal to the intrinsic
value:
- An American option must be traded at least at its intrinsic
value since otherwise a riskless profit can be realized by buying
and immediately exercising the option. This relation does not hold
in general for European options. The reason is that a European
option can be exercised only indirectly by means of a future
contract. The thereby involved discounting rate can possibly lead
to the option being worth less than its intrinsic value.
- The value of two American options which have different time to
maturities,
is monotonous in time to maturity:
This follows, for calls, say, using 2., 3. from the
inequality which holds at time
with
intrinsic value  |
(3.12) |
Due to the no-arbitrage assumption the inequality must hold
for any point in time
For European options this
result does not hold in general.
- An American option is at least as valuable as the
identically
specified European option since the American option gives more
rights to the holder.
- The value of a call is a monotonously decreasing function
of the delivery price since the right to buy is the more valuable
the lower the agreed upon delivery price. Accordingly, the value
of a put is a monotonously increasing function of the delivery price.
for
. This holds for American as well as for
European options.
The value of European call and put options on the same underlying
with the same time to maturity and delivery price are closely
linked to each other without using a complicated mathematical
model.
Theorem 3.3 (Put-Call Parity
for European Options)
For the value of a European call and put option which have the
same maturity date

the same delivery price

the same
underlying the following holds (where

denotes the continuous
interest rate):
- If the underlying pays a dividend yield with a time
discounted total value of
during the time to maturity
then it holds
 |
(3.13) |
SFEPutCall.xpl
- If the underlying involves continuous costs of carry at rate
during the time to maturity
then it holds
 |
(3.14) |
Proof:
For simplicity, we again assume the underlying to be a stock. We
consider a portfolio
consisting of one call which will be
duplicated by a suitable portfolio
containing a put among
others.
1. In the case of discrete dividend yields we consider at time
the following portfolio
- Buy the put.
- Sell a zero bond with face value
maturing
- Buy one stock.
- Sell a zero bond at the current price
.
The stock in portfolio
pays dividends whose value
discounted to time
is
At time
these dividend yields
are used to pay back the zero bond of position d). Hence this
position has a value of zero at time
Table 2.1 shows
the value of portfolio
at time
where we distinguished the
situations where the put is exercised (
) and where it
is not exercised.
Table 2.1:
Value of portfolio
at time
(Theorem
2.3).
|
Value at timet  |
Position |
 |
 |
a) |
0 |
 |
b) |
 |
 |
c) |
 |
 |
d) |
0 |
0 |
Sum |
 |
0 |
|
At time
portfolio
has thus the same value
as the call. To avoid arbitrage opportunities both portfolios
and
must have the same value at any time
prior
that
is it holds
 |
(3.15) |
2. In the case of continuous dividends at rate
and
corresponding costs of carry
we consider the same
portfolio
as in part 1. but this time without position d).
Instead we buy
stocks in position c) whose dividends
are immediately reinvested in the same stock. If
is negative,
then the costs are financed by selling stocks. Thus, portfolio
contains exactly one stock at time
and we conclude as in
part 1. that the value of portfolio
is at time
equal to
the value of the call.
The proof of the put-call parity holds only for European options.
For American options it may happen that the put or call are
exercised prior maturity and that both portfolios are not hold
until maturity.
The following result makes it possible to check whether prices of
options on the same underlying are consistent. If the convexity
formulated below is violated, then arbitrage opportunities arise
as we will show in the example following the proof of the next
theorem.
Theorem 3.4
The price of a (American or European) Option is a convex function
of the delivery price.
Proof:
It suffices to consider calls since the proof is analogous for
puts. The put-call parity for European options is linear in the
term which depends explicitly on
Hence, for European options
it follows immediately that puts are convex in
given that
calls are convex in
.
For
and
we define
We consider a portfolio
which
at time
consists of one call with delivery price
and maturity date
At time
we duplicate this
portfolio by the following portfolio
- A long position in
calls with delivery price
maturing in
.
- A long position in
calls delivery price
maturing in
.
By liquidating both portfolios at an arbitrary point of time
we can compute the difference in the values of
portfolio
and
which is given in Table 2.2
Table 2.2:
Difference in the values of portfolios
and
at
time
(Theorem 2.4).
|
Value at time  |
Position |
|
|
|
 |
1. |
0 |
|
 |
|
2. |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
0 |
|
|
Sum |
0 |
|
|
0 |
|
Since
und
in the last row of Table 2.2 the
difference in the values of portfolio
and
at time
and
thus for any point of time
is greater than or equal to
zero. Hence, denoting
it holds
 |
(3.16) |
We already said that option prices are monotonous functions of the
delivery price. The following theorem for European options is more
precise on this subject.
Theorem 3.5
For two European calls (puts) with the same maturity
date

and delivery prices

it holds at time

:
 |
(3.18) |
or
 |
(3.19) |
with

and

denoting the time to maturity and the
interest rate respectively. If call (put) option prices are
differentiable as a function of the delivery price, then by
taking the limit

it follows
bzw. |
(3.20) |
Proof:
We proof the theorem for calls since for puts the reasoning is
analogous. For this we consider a portfolio
containing one
call with delivery price
which we compare to a duplicating
portfolio
At time
the latter portfolio consists of the
following two positions:
- A long position in one call with delivery price
.
- A long position in one zero bond with face value
maturing in
.
The difference of the value of portfolios
and
at time
is shown in Table 2.5.
Table:
Difference in the values of portfolios
and
at
time
(Theorem 2.5).
|
Value at time  |
Position |
 |
 |
 |
1. |
0 |
0 |
 |
2. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
0 |
 |
 |
Sum |
 |
 |
0 |
|
At time
portfolio
is clearly as valuable as portfolio
which given the no-arbitrage assumption must hold at time
as
well. We conclude: