Why Two Assets Share a Market Price of Risk in a One-Factor Model
Summary
The document explains why two risky assets driven by the same Brownian motion must have the same market price of risk under the Black–Scholes framework. Their excess expected returns divided by their volatilities must match, because a single source of uncertainty supports only one market price of risk.
One argument uses the uniqueness of the risk-neutral measure when the market is arbitrage-free and complete. Another uses a stochastic discount factor: pricing each asset links its excess return to its volatility and the same uncertainty price. The discussion also attempts a self-financing portfolio derivation. These results rely on the model’s assumptions, including shared one-dimensional risk and suitable market conditions; they do not establish the same relation in incomplete markets or when assets have distinct risk drivers.
Key ideas
- With one shared Brownian risk, both assets’ excess-return-to-volatility ratios must be equal.
- A unique risk-neutral measure in an arbitrage-free, complete market supports the equality.
- A stochastic discount factor prices both assets using the same uncertainty price.
- The conclusion depends on the single-factor model and its market assumptions.
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# Market price of risk on two assets
# Market price of risk on two assets
Under the assumptions of the Black--Scholes model, I read that the market price of risk of two assets $S_1$ and $S_2$ are the same, if they both follow Geometric Brownian motion driven by the same Brownian motion.
The claim is that if \begin{align*} dS_1(t)&=\mu_1S_1(t)dt+\sigma_1S_1(t)dW(t),\qquad\text{and} \\ dS_2(t)&=\mu_2S_2(t)dt+\sigma_2S_2(t)dW(t) \end{align*} then $$\frac{\mu_1-r}{\sigma_1}=\frac{\mu_2-r}{\sigma_2}$$ where $r$ is the risk-free rate. The 'proof' of this relies on constructing a portfolio of $\sigma_2S_2$ units of $S_1$ and $-\sigma_1S_1$ units of $S_2$ and assuming that this portfolio is self-financing, then using Ito's formula on the value of this portfolio to show that it only has a drift term. I don't believe the assumption that this portfolio is self-financing holds.
Does the claim hold, and if so is there a proof of this result?
EDIT:
Thought about this a bit more and realised it falls out of the Second Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing where the risk-neutral measure is unique if and only the market is arbitrage-free and complete.
Assuming that the market is arbitrage-free and complete, we can construct measures $\mathbb{Q}_1$ and $\mathbb{Q}_2$ such that $$W_1(t)=W(t)+\frac{\mu_1-r}{\sigma_1}t,\qquad W_2(t)=W(t)+\frac{\mu_2-r}{\sigma_2}t$$ are $\mathbb{Q}_1$ and $\mathbb{Q}_2$ Brownian motions respectively. Both these measures give rise to a measure such that discounted asset prices are martingales. By uniqueness, $\mathbb{Q}_1=\mathbb{Q}_2$ and so $$\frac{\mu_1-r}{\sigma_1}=\frac{\mu_2-r}{\sigma_2}.$$
## Answer by fes (score 2)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/55957
Here is a simple solution using the equivalence of no arbitrage and the existence of a stochastic discount factor. Let the SDF be $\Lambda(t)$. This evolves as
$$\frac{d\Lambda(t)}{\Lambda(t)}=-rdt-\varphi(t) dW(t),$$
where we used the fact that the drift of the SDF is the risk-free rate and that there is only one source of uncertainty. The standard pricing conditions for the stocks are
$$(\mu_1-r)dt=-\frac{dS_1(t)}{S_1(t)}\frac{d\Lambda(t)}{\Lambda(t)}=\sigma_1\varphi(t)dt$$
$$(\mu_2-r)dt=-\frac{dS_2(t)}{S_2(t)}\frac{d\Lambda(t)}{\Lambda(t)}=\sigma_2\varphi(t)dt.$$
That is the market price of risk $\varphi(t)$ is given by
$$\varphi(t)=\frac{\mu_1-r}{\sigma_1}=\frac{\mu_2-r}{\sigma_2}$$
## Answer by ir7 (score 1)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/55962
Another way to look at it, is that we have a one-dimensional Brownian motion process driving the market but two risky assets. The market price of risk process (giving the equivalent martingale measure), $\lambda$, must then respect two conditions:
$$ \lambda \sigma_1 =\mu_1 -r $$ $$ \lambda \sigma_2 =\mu_2 -r $$
which implies
$$\frac{\mu_1-r}{\sigma_1}=\frac{\mu_2-r}{\sigma_2}.$$
Update: One other way (same strategy as in the question, but different portfolio).
For a self-financing portfolio $(\gamma^1, \gamma^2,\beta) $, we have:
$$ P_t = \gamma^1_tS_t^1 + \gamma^2_tS_t^2 + \beta_tB_t $$
and
$$ dP_t = \gamma^1_t dS_t^1 + \gamma^2_t dS_t^1 +\beta_tdB_t $$
which is the same as
$$ dP_t = \gamma^1_t dS_t^1 + \gamma^2_t dS_t^1 +r(P_t - \gamma^1_tS_t^1 - \gamma^2_tS_t^2) dt $$
(used $dB_t = rB_t dt$ in the last step)
It turns out that $\beta_t$ needs to be risky, function of assets. We take:
$$ \gamma_t^1 = (\sigma_1 S_t^1)^{-1} $$
$$ \gamma_t^2 = (\sigma_2 S_t^2)^{-1} $$
and $\beta$ defined by equation:
$$ d\beta_t = B_t^{-1}(\gamma_t^1 dS_t^1 + \gamma_t^2 dS_t^2 )$$
This is self-financing because:
$$ dP_t = d(\gamma^1_tS_t^1 + \gamma^2_tS_t^2 + \beta_tB_t) $$ $$ = d(\sigma_1^{-1} + \sigma_2^{-1} + \beta_tB_t) $$ $$ = B_t d\beta_t + \beta_tdB_t $$ $$ = \gamma_t^1 dS_t^1 + \gamma_t^2 dS_t^2 + \beta_tdB_t.$$
(we used the fact that quadratic covariation between $\beta_t$ and $B_t$ is $0$)
Finally, some straightforward calculations take us now to:
$$ dP_t= \gamma^1_t dS_t^1 + \gamma^2_t dS_t^1 +r(P_t - \gamma^1_tS_t^1 - \gamma^2_tS_t^2) dt $$
$$ = \left(rP_t + \frac{\mu_1-r}{\sigma_1} -\frac{\mu_2-r}{\sigma_2} \right)dt $$
Update 2: For the weights in the question, we can choose $\beta$ such that
$$d \beta = - B^{-1}(\sigma_2 S^1 dS^2 - \sigma_1 S^2 dS^1 + (\sigma_2 -\sigma_1)dS^1dS^2) $$
For $$ P = \sigma_2 S^2S^1 - \sigma_1 S^1S^2 + \beta B$$
we then have:
$$ dP = (\sigma_2 -\sigma_1)d(S^1S^2) + Bd\beta + \beta dB$$ $$ = (\sigma_2 -\sigma_1)(S^1dS^2 + S^2dS^1 + dS^1dS^2) + Bd\beta + \beta dB $$ $$ = \sigma_2S_2 dS^1 -\sigma_1 S^1 dS^2 + \beta dB $$
So, the final portfolio dynamics is:
$$ dP= \sigma_2 S^2dS^1 - \sigma_1 S^1dS^2 +r(P_t - \sigma_2 S^2S^1 + \sigma_1 S^1S^2 ) dt $$
$$ = \left(rP + \sigma_2(\mu_1-r)S^1S^2 - \sigma_1(\mu_2-r)S^1S^2\right) dt$$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.