Call Option - Value of A Call

Value of A Call

This example leads to the following formal reasoning. Fix an underlying financial instrument. Let be a call option for this instrument, purchased at time, expiring at time, with exercise (strike) price ; and let be the price of the underlying instrument.

Assume the owner of the option, wants to make no loss, and does not want to actually possess the underlying instrument, . Then either (i) the person will exercise the option and purchase, and then immediately sell it; or (ii) the person will not exercise the option (which subsequently becomes worthless). In (i), the pay-off would be ; in (ii) the pay-off would be . So if (i) or (ii) occurs; if then (ii) occurs.

Hence the pay-off, i.e. the value of the call option at expiry, is

which is also written or .

Read more about this topic:  Call Option

Famous quotes containing the word call:

    “Could it not be that just at the moment masculinity has brought us to the brink of nuclear destruction or ecological suicide, women are beginning to rise in response to the Mother’s call to save her planet and create instead the next stage of evolution? Can our revolution mean anything else than the reversion of social and economic control to Her representatives among Womankind, and the resumption of Her worship on the face of the Earth? Do we dare demand less?”
    —Jane Alpert (b. 1947)