Geometric Brownian motion 229
Note: The probability of what
S
does next depend only on the current
state,
t. This is called
Markov property
.
In other words: In a Markov proces
s future movements in a variable
depend only on where we are, not
the history of how we got where we
are.
Over a small time interval
[t,t+dt]
a GBM has the following
economic
interpretation
:
stock return = mean return + volatility * normal random disturbance
large volatility
Ä
large random fluctuations
small volatility
Ä
small random fluctuations
()
()
dt
dt
N
dS S
dt
N
dW
where
dW
dt
dS S
t t
t
t
t t
² , ~ , 0 ~ ,
σ
μ
σ
μ
⇒
+
=
Derivative securities: Options - Black-Scholes model