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Properties and classic martingales of Brownian motion

Question

State the definition of a standard Brownian motion, list its key properties, and name the standard martingales built from it.

Short answer

W0=0W_0=0, continuous paths, independent increments with Wt−Ws∼N(0,t−s)W_t-W_s\sim N(0,t-s). Properties: Gaussian process with Cov⁡(Ws,Wt)=min⁡(s,t)\operatorname{Cov}(W_s,W_t)=\min(s,t), Markov, scale-invariant (cWt/c2cW_{t/c^2} is again Brownian), quadratic variation tt, nowhere differentiable, recurrent in one dimension. Classic martingales are WtW_t, Wt2−tW_t^2-t and exp⁡(λWt−12λ2t)\exp(\lambda W_t-\tfrac12\lambda^2t).

Adapted from Zhou, A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews, sec. 5.4 Brownian Motion and Stochastic Calculus, 'Brownian motion A', p.128; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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