Markov Property
Also called: Markov process, memoryless property, Markov chain
The Markov property says the future depends only on the present state, not on the path that led there. It's what makes models computationally tractable — you can price on a recombining tree or a low-dimensional grid instead of tracking every history. It's also the formal statement behind weak-form market efficiency, and the reason path-dependent options like Asians and lookbacks need extra state variables to price.
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