Does Itô’s formula define a semimartingale

stochastic-analysisstochastic-calculusstochastic-differential-equationsstochastic-processes

We may define a semimartingale as:
$$X_{t}=X_{0}+M_{t}+A_{t}$$
Where $X_0$ is $\mathcal{F}_0$ measurable, $M$ is a continuous
local martingale $M_0 = 0$ and $A$ is an adapted continuous finite variation process
with $A_0 = 0$. The Itô's formula reads:
$$df(t,X_t) =\frac{\partial f}{\partial t}dt + \frac{\partial f}{\partial X_s}\,dX_t+\frac{1}{2}\frac{\partial^2f}{\partial X_s^2}d[X]_t$$

$[X]_t$ is a quadratic variation and hence a finite variation process, is $\frac{\partial^2f}{\partial x^2}d[X]_t$ also a finite variation process?

Best Answer

Since $[X]_t$ is of finite variation, $\int f_{xx}(s, X_s)d[X]_s$ is interpreted in the Lebesgue-Stieltjes sense. This integral itself produces finite variation functions. You can see that by decomposing $f_{xx}(s, X_s)$ into positive and negative parts and $d[X]_s$ as the difference of two nondecreasing functions.

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