Martingale Theory

Author

John Robin Inston

Published

September 25, 2026

1 Martingales

A stochastic process \((X_{t})\) defined and adapted on \((\Omega,\mathcal{F},\mathbb{F}, \mathbb{P})\) is a martingale if: 1. \(\mathbb{E}[|M_{n}|]<\infty\) for \(n \geq 1\); and 2. \(\mathbb{E}[M_{n+1}|\mathcal{F}_{n}]=M_{n}\) for all \(n \geq 1\).

  • A submartingale is a martingale such that \(\mathbb{E}[M_{n+1}|\mathcal{F}_{n}]\geq M_{n}\) (i.e. the martingale tends to drift upwards in expectation).
  • A supermartingale is a martingale such that \(\mathbb{E}[M_{n+1}|\mathcal{F}_{n}]\leq M_{n}\) (i.e. the martingale tends to drift downward in expectation).

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