Black-Scholes call via risk-neutral expectation
Question
Derive the Black-Scholes price of a European call by computing a discounted expectation under the risk-neutral measure.
Short answer
. Under the risk-neutral measure , so . The strike term is ; for the stock term, completing the square in the Gaussian integral (a shift of by ) gives .
Adapted from Zhou, A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews, sec. 6.1 Option Pricing, 'Black-Scholes formula B', p.143; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- The Black-Scholes PDE, Formula and Implied Volatility
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
- Conditional Expectation and Variance Revisited
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