On the semimartingale property of discounted asset-price processes

Abstract

A financial market model where agents trade using realistic combinations of buy-and-hold strategies is considered. Minimal assumptions are made on the discounted asset-price process - in particular, the semimartingale property is not assumed. Via a natural market viability assumption, namely, absence of arbitrages of the first kind, we establish that discounted asset-prices have to be semimartingales. In a slightly more specialized case, we extend the previous result in a weakened version of the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing that involves strictly positive supermartingale deflators rather than Equivalent Martingale Measures.

11 pages. The text has been thoroughly revised and there are new results. This is the 1st part of what comprised the older arxiv submission arXiv:0803.1890 "On financial markets where only buy-and-hold trading is possible" by the two authors