Arbitrage in Estimate Nothing: an example

Abstract

We give a two-period counterexample to the absence of arbitrage for the posterior-weighted pricing rule in Estimate nothing by Duembgen and Rogers. Both physical models have strictly positive transition densities, and each model is equipped with an equivalent martingale measure. Nevertheless, the mixed price of a single derivative falls deterministically from $5/2$ to $2$ between two trading dates. If these prices are tradable, shorting the derivative and closing the position one period later yields a certain profit. A finite-state appendix also illustrates the failure of recursive consistency.