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Proving Market Completeness Through a Unique Risk-Neutral Measure

Article Quant Q&A · Author: user926034

Summary

The document considers a one-period market with two risky assets and three possible future states. After arguing that the market is arbitrage-free, the question is how to establish that every contingent claim can be replicated without solving explicitly for portfolio holdings. The response uses the second fundamental theorem of asset pricing: in an arbitrage-free market, completeness is equivalent to uniqueness of the risk-neutral probability measure.

It derives equations requiring discounted expected asset prices under that measure to equal current prices, alongside the probabilities summing to one. With three state probabilities and three independent equations, the response obtains a unique risk-neutral measure and concludes that the market is complete, so any contingent claim has a replicating portfolio. The argument depends on the equations being independent and on the stated finite-state model assumptions; merely having as many equations as unknowns would not ensure uniqueness if the system were singular.

Key ideas

  • In an arbitrage-free market, completeness is equivalent to uniqueness of the risk-neutral measure.
  • Risk-neutral probabilities satisfy discounted pricing equations for each traded asset.
  • The probabilities must also sum to one.
  • Independent pricing equations can establish a unique measure without solving for each claim’s replicating holdings.
  • The conclusion relies on the finite-state model and independence of the equations.

Tags

Full text
# Replicating Portfolio / Complete Market / Attainable Claim


# Replicating Portfolio / Complete Market / Attainable Claim












Attempt So Far: 1) First Part: I have shown that the market is arbitrage-free since the only possible portfolio for which $V_1^h\geq0 \ $ given that $V_0^h=0 \ $ is $h=(0,0,0)$ and this clearly means that $V_1^h=0$ which contradicts (iii). Concluding that there is no arbitrage strategy.

2) Second part:

We can write $\pmb{u_1}=(1.5,1.05)$, $\pmb{u_2}=(1,1.125)$ and $\pmb{u_3}=(1,1.11)$ such that the Hadamard product (elementwise multiplication) of $\pmb{u_{i}}_{,\ 1\leq i< \leq 3} \ \ $ and $\ (S_0^1,S_0^2)$ produces the possible $(S_1^1,S_1^2)$ found above with the given probabilities.

Fix a contingent claim $X=F(S_1^1,S_1^2)$ and I want to show that there exist $h^*=(x^*,y^*,z^*)$ that replicates X. Then $V_1^{h^*}=\Phi(\pmb{u_{i}}_{,\ 1\leq i< \leq 3} \ )=X.$ Thus, we've:

$$V_1^{h^*}= \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} \ 1.1x^* +15y^*+ 21S_0^2z^*=\Phi(\pmb{u_1}),& \text{with probability } \ 0.5 \\ 1.1x^* +10y^*+ 22.5S_0^2z^*=\Phi(\pmb{u_2}), &\text{with probability } \ 0.25 \\ 1.1x^* +10y^*+22.2S_0^2z^*=\Phi(\pmb{u_3}), & \text{with probability } \ 0.25 \end{array} \right. $$

$$ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ = \left \{ \begin{array}{ll} \ 1.1x^* +1.5S_0^1y^*+ 1.05S_0^2z^*=\Phi(\pmb{u_1}),& \text{with probability } \ 0.5 \\ 1.1x^* +S_0^1y^*+ 1.25S_0^2z^*=\Phi(\pmb{u_2}), &\text{with probability } \ 0.25 \\ 1.1x^* +S_0^1y^*+ 1.11S_0^2z^*=\Phi(\pmb{u_3}), & \text{with probability } \ 0.25. \end{array} \right.$$

From here, I'm unsure of how to proceed. I'm not supposed to solve the system to find $x^*, \ y^* \ $ and $z^*$ because the question clearly states that I shouldn't need to do that. That said, I'm not sure how to establish that the system above always has a solution without solving the system.

## Answer by R. Rayl (score 1)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/63956

It sounds like you have shown the first part, so I will concentrate on the second part.

We will use the Second Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing: An arbitrage-free market is complete if and only if the risk-neutral measure is unique.

Note that market completeness means that any contingent claim can be replicated by a portfolio. So, if you can show that $Q$ is unique, you have shown that your claim can be replicated.

To show $Q$ is unique, consider the price movements of each asset. We know that under $Q$ the discounted expected (under $Q$) price of the each asset must equal the current price of the asset. So

\begin{align} \mathbb{E}_Q[S_1^1] \frac{1}{1.1} &= 10 \\ \mathbb{E}_Q[S_1^2] \frac{1}{1.1} &= 20 \end{align}

So using the possible values that we are given for $S^1_1$ and $S^2_1$, we can write:

\begin{align} 15 q_1 + 10q_2 + 10q_3 &= 11 \\ 21q_1 + 22.5q_2 + 22.2q_3 &= 22 \\ q_1 + q_2 + q_3 &= 1 \end{align} where $q_1, q_2, q_3$ correspond to the $P$-probabilities $0.5, 0.25, 0.25$. Note that we have three equations with three unknowns. Hence, we have a unique solution, namely \begin{align} q_1 = 0.2, \; q_2 = 0.1\dot{3}, \; q_3 = 0.\dot{6} \end{align}

Thus, $Q$ in unique. This implies our market is complete (since you already showed it is arbitrage-free). Therefore, any contingent claim can be replicated (i.e the replicating portfolio exists).

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.