In probability theory, optional stopping theorem (or Doob's optional sampling theorem) says that, under certain conditions, the expected value of a martingale at a stopping time is equal to the expected value of its initial value. Since martingales can be used to model the wealth of a gambler participating in a fair game, the optional stopping theorem says that on the average nothing can be gained by stopping to play the game based on the information obtainable so far (i.e., by not looking into the future). Of course, certain conditions are necessary for this result to hold true, in particular doubling strategies have to be excluded.
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The optional stopping theorem is an important tool of mathematical finance in the context of the fundamental theorem of asset pricing.
Statement of theorem
A discrete-time version of the theorem is given below:
Let X = (Xt)t∈ℕ0 be a discrete-time martingale and τ a stopping time with values in ℕ0 ∪ {∞}, both with respect to a filtration (Ft)t∈ℕ0. Assume that one of the following three conditions holds:
(a) The stopping time τ is almost surely bounded, i.e., there exists a constant c ∈ ℕ such that τ ≤ c a.s.(b) The stopping time τ has finite expectation and the conditional expectations of the absolute value of the martingale increments are almost surely bounded, more precisely,Then Xτ is an almost surely well defined random variable and
Similarly, if the stochastic process X is a submartingale or a supermartingale and one of the above conditions holds, then
for a submartingale, and
for a supermartingale.
Remark
Under condition (c) it is possible that τ = ∞ happens with positive probability. On this event Xτ is defined as the almost surely existing pointwise limit of X, see the proof below for details.
Applications
Proof
Let X τ denote the stopped process, it is also a martingale (or a submartingale or supermartingale, respectively). Under condition (a) or (b), the random variable Xτ is well defined. Under condition (c) the stopped process X τ is bounded, hence by Doob's martingale convergence theorem it converges a.s. pointwise to a random variable which we call Xτ.
If condition (c) holds, then the stopped process X τ is bounded by the constant random variable M := c. Otherwise, writing the stopped process as
gives |Xtτ| ≤ M for all t ∈ ℕ0, where
By the monotone convergence theorem
If condition (a) holds, then this series only has a finite number of non-zero terms, hence M is integrable.
If condition (b) holds, then we continue by inserting a conditional expectation and using that the event {τ > s} is known at time s (note that τ is assumed to be a stopping time with respect to the filtration), hence
where a representation of the expected value of non-negative integer-valued random variables is used for the last equality.
Therefore, under any one of the three conditions in the theorem, the stopped process is dominated by an integrable random variable M. Since the stopped process X τ converges almost surely to Xτ , the dominated convergence theorem implies
By the martingale property of the stopped process,
hence
Similarly, if X is a submartingale or supermartingale, respectively, change the equality in the last two formulas to the appropriate inequality.