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Arbitrage and Completeness in a Black–Scholes Model with Jumps

Article Quant Q&A · Author: J. D.

Summary

The document discusses a stock modeled with both Brownian motion and Poisson jumps, asking whether the market is arbitrage-free and complete, whether option prices are unique, and whether a longer-dated call can help replicate a shorter-dated one. Its central explanation counts independent sources of randomness against traded risky assets: one stock can hedge Brownian risk but cannot generally span both continuous and jump risk, so the market is incomplete and arbitrage-free prices need not be unique.

The text offers this as a qualitative rule of thumb rather than a full proof. It does not derive the equivalent martingale measures, establish precise conditions for no arbitrage, or resolve whether the longer-maturity call supplies enough independent exposure for replication. Those conclusions depend on the option’s dynamics and the model’s assumptions, so the brief answer leaves important details open.

Key ideas

  • A stock driven by both Brownian and Poisson risk has two distinct sources of randomness.
  • One risky asset generally cannot hedge both sources of risk.
  • An incomplete market can admit multiple arbitrage-free prices for a claim.
  • A longer-maturity option might add a hedge instrument, but the document does not establish that it completes the market.

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Full text
# Arbitrage free in a Black-Scholes/Poisson model


# Arbitrage free in a Black-Scholes/Poisson model












I am trying to solve the following exercise from Bjork's Arbitrage Theory in Continuous Time:

> Consider a model for the stock market where the short rate of interest $r$ is a deterministic constant. We focus on a particular stock with price process $S$. Under the objective probability measure $P$ we have the following dynamics for the price process. $$ dS(t) = \alpha S(t)dt + \sigma S(t)dW(t) + \delta S(t^-)dN(t) $$ Here $W$ is a standard Wiener process whereas $N$ is a Poisson process with intensity $\lambda$. We assume that $\alpha, \sigma,\delta$ and $\lambda$ are known to us. The $dN$ term is to be interpreted in the following way: Between the jump times of the Poisson process $N$, the $S$-process behaves just like ordinary geometric Brownian motion. If $N$ has a jump at time $t$ this induces $S$ to have a jump at time $t$. The size of the $S$-jump is given by $$ S(t) - S(t^-) = \delta\cdot S(t^-) $$ Discuss the following questions. Is the model free of arbitrage? Is the model complete? Is there a unique arbitrage free price for, say, a European call option? Suppose that you want to replicate a European call option maturing in January 1999. Is it posssible (theoretically) to replicate this asset by a portfolio consisting of bonds, the underlying stock and European call option maturing in December 2001?

#### Q2

The model is complete if we can find a replicating portfolio for it. The replicating portfolio can be built using a bond, with deterministic price process: $$ dB = rBdt $$ and a certain number of stock shares $S_i$, with stochastic price process: $$ dS_i = \alpha_i S_i dt + S_i\sum_j\sigma_{ij} dW_j + \delta_i S_i dN_i, $$ where $W_j$ are independent standard Wiener processes, and $N_i$ are independent standard Poisson processes.

To build a replicating portfolio, we need some theoretical tools, like proving some form of the Ito's lemma for jump processes, but in principle, supposing that such a thing exists, we should probably manage to build a replicating portfolio.

The jump processes probably require some care when imposing the self-financing constraint in the portfolio, but basically they act as random, instantaneous injections or withdrawals of the money that can be used to rebalance the portfolio.

#### Q1, Q3 and Q4

I am not sure about my answer to Q2, and have no idea on how to approach Q1, Q3, and Q4. Any help would be appreciated.

## Answer by Magic is in the chain (score 1, accepted)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/48745

This is easy to answer with the meta theorem given in the same chapter. Here you have two sources of randomness (W and N), and one risky asset.

Q1: Arbitrage generally happens when you have more assets than the number of random sources, but here it is the other way around, so the answer is yes.

Q2: You have one risky asset so you can delta hedge one source of randomness, say Brownian, but not both sources of randomness so the market is not complete. This is also your guide to Q4- i.e.,can you use the other call option with the longer maturity to manage the second random source? In theory yes?

Q3: Based on Q1 and Q2, can we say there are many such prices? So not unique arbitrage free price?

Q4: Pls see Q2 above

Hope this helps!

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This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.