Delta Hedging, Self-Financing Portfolios, and Black–Scholes Growth
Summary
The document examines whether a portfolio formed from a stock position and a short option, with the stock holding set to the option’s delta, should end with zero value or grow at the risk-free rate. The discussion centers on a Black–Scholes setting and distinguishes eliminating the instantaneous Brownian risk from constructing a self-financing portfolio. A continuously adjusted delta hedge is described as a local, dynamic hedge requiring repeated rebalancing over the option’s life.
The responses challenge the assumption that the stated stock-minus-option portfolio automatically earns the risk-free rate: one notes that the specified position is not self-financing and does not satisfy the risk-free growth equation as written. A different set of holdings is presented as a self-financing portfolio that does grow at that rate. The document gives equations but little derivation, and flags that the lecture-note context and the convention for which side of the hedge holds delta matter when interpreting the claim.
Key ideas
- Setting stock exposure to option delta removes the instantaneous Brownian component in the stated setup.
- Removing that risk alone does not establish that a portfolio is self-financing.
- The stock-minus-option portfolio as written is said not to satisfy the risk-free growth equation.
- A different set of holdings is presented as a self-financing portfolio that grows at the risk-free rate.
- The hedge assumes continuous rebalancing and depends on the portfolio convention being used.
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Full text
# Expected value of delta-hedged portfolio
# Expected value of delta-hedged portfolio
Consider portfolio in black-scholes world
$\Pi = \Delta S - V$, where $S$ is the stock price and V is the price of the option.
I have read that if we set $\Delta = \frac{\partial V}{\partial S} $ then we obtain $d\Pi = (...)dt + 0 * dW$, where $W$ is brownian motion. And by no-arbitrage we have $d\Pi = r \Pi dt$, where is risk-free interest rate, so that $\Pi_T = (\Delta_0S_0 - V)\exp(rT)$.
I came across some lecture notes, that claim that if $\Pi = \Delta S - V$ is $\Delta$-hedged then value of such portfolio is $0$ at time of expiration of the option $T$.
But I would be expecting such a portfolio to have a value of $\Pi_T = (\Delta_0S_0 - V)\exp(rT)$, could someone help to figure out what is going on?
Thank you
## Answer by Magic is in the chain (score 2)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/41854
It should indeed grow at the risk free rate, as explained in the Black Scholes paper (excerpt below):
Would be worth knowing the context around the presentation in the lecture notes.
Note though the delta is assumed to be continuously rebalanced (dynamic hedging), so think of it as very local approximation, and there would be many rebalancing between 0 and T.
PS: Black Scholes hedging portfolio is different than how it is normally presented in the textbooks as the delta is the other way around. Also note some controversy around Black Scholes arguments (see for example: the hypothesis underlying the pricing of options by Bartlets, and FAQs in Option pricing theory by Peter Carr).
## Answer by Gordon (score 1)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/47236
In the Black-Scholes' setting, as we discussed in this question, the portfolio $\Pi = \Delta S -V$, where $V= \frac{\partial V}{\partial S}= N(d_1)$, is not self-financing. Moreover, \begin{align*} \Pi = \Delta S -V=Ke^{-r(T-t)}N(d_2) \end{align*} does not satisfy the equation \begin{align*} d\Pi = r\Pi dt. \end{align*} In fact, let \begin{align*} \Delta_t^1 = \frac{\frac{\partial V}{\partial S} e^{rt}}{V_t - \frac{\partial V} {\partial S}S},\quad \Delta_t^2 =\frac{-e^{rt}}{V_t - \frac{\partial V}{\partial S}S}. \end{align*} Then, it can be checked that the portfolio \begin{align*} \Pi_t = \Delta_t^1 S + \Delta_t^2 V = e^{rt} \end{align*} is self-financing, and \begin{align*} d\Pi = r\Pi dt. \end{align*}Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.