Evaluating a Truncated Stock Price Expectation in Black–Scholes
Summary
The document derives an expectation involving the terminal stock price multiplied by an indicator that the stock finishes above a strike. It shows how to evaluate the risk-neutral expectation directly by integrating the lognormal stock distribution, without changing probability measures. Completing the square in the normal density shifts the integration variable and expresses the result using the standard normal cumulative distribution function and the Black–Scholes upper-tail term.
The answer also clarifies that the stock numeraire measure sometimes used for this calculation is distinct from the physical measure. The derivation presented is for the risk-neutral measure in the plain vanilla Black–Scholes setting, where discounted expected payoff determines value. Although the question asks about the physical measure, the response does not derive that case; its formula relies on the stated risk-neutral drift and does not cover other dynamics or dividends.
Key ideas
- A truncated expectation of terminal stock value can be computed by integrating its lognormal distribution.
- Completing the square converts the integrand into a shifted normal density.
- The resulting risk-neutral expectation is expressed with the standard normal cumulative distribution function.
- The stock numeraire measure is distinct from the physical probability measure.
- The derivation applies to the risk-neutral Black–Scholes setting and does not answer the physical-measure case directly.
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# How do I find this Expectation?
# How do I find this Expectation?
I have an expectation given as: $\mathbb{E}\left(S_{T}\mathbb{1}_{S_{T}\geq K} \right)$
where $K$ is just an arbitrary number (i.e. the strike price, but that's unimportant) and $S$ can be modelled by the equation $S_{t} = \exp((r-\frac{1}{2})t + \sigma W_{t})$. Also, the expectation is under the $\mathbb{P}$-measure, not the $\mathbb{Q}$-measure, so effectively this expectation is $\mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{P}}\left(S_{T}\mathbb{1}_{S_{T}\geq K} \right)$
Now, when trying to evaluate $\mathbb{E}\left(\mathbb{1}_{S_{T}\geq K} \right)$ under the $\mathbb{Q}$-measure, then solving this expectation is fairly easy, since you can integrate the SDE and take the $\log$ of $S$ to get $\log(S_{T}) = \log(S_{0}) + (r-\frac{1}{2})T + \sigma\sqrt{T}N(0,1)$ (since $W_{t}\approx \sqrt{T}N(0,1)$) and thus we have for $\mathbb{E}\left(\mathbb{1}_{S_{T}\geq K} \right) = \mathbb{P}({S_{T}\geq K})$:
$\log(S_{T}) = (r-\frac{1}{2})T + \sigma\sqrt{T}N(0,1) > \log(K)$ and thus rearranging this equation gives
$N(0,1) > \frac{\log(K/S_{0}) - (r-\frac{1}{2}\sigma^{2})T}{\sigma\sqrt{T}}$
and through a little bit more rearrangement (i.e. knowing that $N(0,1)<-x = 1 - N(x)$ we get finally $d_{2} = \frac{(r-\frac{1}{2}\sigma^{2})T + \log(S_{0}/K)}{\sigma\sqrt{T}}$ and thus $\mathbb{E}\left(\mathbb{1}_{S_{T}\geq K} \right) = N(d_{2})$.
The problem I have now however is that I'm a bit unsure how to find $\mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{P}}\left(S_{T}\mathbb{1}_{S_{T}\geq K} \right)$ (i.e. under the $\mathbb{P}$-measure) since I've never done any measure theory before, so if someone could help me out I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
## Answer by LocalVolatility (score 1)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/30102
In the context of deriving the European plain vanilla price in the Black and Scholes (1973) model, you also evaluate the expectation
\begin{equation} \mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}} \left[ S_T \mathrm{1} \left\{ S_T > K \right\} \right] \end{equation}
under the $\mathbb{Q}$ (risk-neutral) measure. Remember that the value of a contract is its discounted expected value under $\mathbb{Q}$.
I think what you might confuse here is that the above expectation is often solved by changing to an auxiliary measure under which the stock price is the numeraire. This measure is often denoted $\mathbb{S}$ but is different from the physical measure $\mathbb{P}$.
You do not need to change the measure however to solve the expectation, though it makes things much easier once you feel comfortable with the corresponding machinery. Alternatively you can just solve the corresponding integral. Let $\phi(x)$ be the standard normal density function. Then
\begin{eqnarray} \mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}} \left[ S_T \mathrm{1} \left\{ S_T > K \right\} \right] & = & \int_{-d_-}^\infty S_0 \exp \left\{ \left( r - \frac{1}{2} \sigma^2 \right) T - \sigma \sqrt{T} x \right\} \phi(x) \mathrm{d}x. \end{eqnarray}
Here we defined $d_-$ through
\begin{eqnarray} S_T > K & \qquad \Leftrightarrow \qquad & S_0 \exp \left\{ \left( r - \frac{1}{2} \sigma^2 \right) T - \sigma \sqrt{T} x \right\} > K\\ & & x > \frac{\ln \left( K / S_0 \right) - \left( r - \frac{1}{2} \sigma^2 \right) T}{\sigma \sqrt{T}} =: -d_-. \end{eqnarray}
Substituting for $\phi(x)$ and collecting terms in $x$ in the integral yields
\begin{eqnarray} \ldots & = & \int_{-d_-}^\infty S_0 \exp \left\{ \left( r - \frac{1}{2} \sigma^2 \right) T \right\} \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi}} \exp \left\{ -\frac{x^2}{2} + \sigma \sqrt{T} x \right\} \mathrm{d}x\\ & = & \int_{-d_-}^\infty S_0 \exp \left\{ \left( r - \frac{1}{2} \sigma^2 \right) T \right\} \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi}} \exp \left\{ -\frac{x^2 - 2 \sigma \sqrt{T} x \pm \sigma^2 T}{2} \right\} \mathrm{d}x\\ & = & S_0 e^{r T} \int_{-d_-}^\infty \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi}} \exp \left\{ -\frac{(x - \sigma \sqrt{T})^2}{2} \right\} \mathrm{d}x. \end{eqnarray}
Here we completed the square in the second and third steps. Apply a change of variables by setting $y = x - \sigma \sqrt{T}$ and you get
\begin{eqnarray} \ldots & = & S_0 e^{r T} \int_{- \left( d_- + \sigma \sqrt{T} \right)}^\infty \phi(y) \mathrm{d}y\\ & = & S_0 e^{r T} \mathcal{N} \left( d_+ \right), \end{eqnarray}
where we defined $d_+ = d_- + \sigma \sqrt{T}$.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.