And it's not just those trading in the foreign exchange markets that are affected. Adverse currency movements can often crush the returns of a portfolio with heavy international exposure, or diminish the returns of an otherwise prosperous international business venture. Companies that conduct business across borders are exposed to currency risk when income earned abroad is converted into the money of the domestic country, and when payables are converted from the domestic currency to the foreign currency. The currency swap market is one way to hedge that risk. Currency swaps not only hedge against risk exposure associated with exchange rate fluctuations, but they also ensure receipt of foreign monies and achieve better lending rates.
A currency swap is a financial instrument that involves the exchange of interest in one currency for the same in another currency. Currency swaps comprise two notional principals that are exchanged at the beginning and end of the agreement.
These notional principals are predetermined dollar amounts, or principal, on which the exchanged interest payments are based. However, this principal is never actually repaid: It's strictly "notional" which means theoretical. It's only used as a basis on which to calculate the interest rate payments, which do change hands.
Here are some sample scenarios for currency swaps. In real life, transaction costs would apply; they have been omitted in these examples for simplification. Assuming a 0. Now, let's take a look at the physical payments made using this swap agreement. At the outset of the contract, the German company gives the U. Subsequently, every six months for the next three years the length of the contract , the two parties will swap payments. The German firm pays the U. The U. The two parties would exchange these fixed two amounts every six months.
Three years after initiation of the contract, the two parties would exchange the notional principals. Accordingly, the U. Using the example above, the U. These types of modifications to currency swap agreements are usually based on the demands of the individual parties in addition to the types of funding requirements and optimal loan possibilities available to the companies.
Either party A or B can be the fixed rate pay while the counterparty pays the floating rate. In this case, both the U. The rest of the terms of the agreement remain the same. Recall our first plain vanilla currency swap example using the U. There are several advantages to the swap arrangement for the U. First, the U.
The more competitive domestic interest rate on the loan, and consequently the lower interest expense, is most likely the result of the U. It is worthwhile to realize that this swap structure essentially looks like the German company purchasing a euro-denominated bond from the U. Other instruments, such are forward contracts, can be used simultaneously to hedge exchange rate risk.
Investors benefit from hedging foreign exchange rate risk as well. Using currency swaps as hedges is also applicable to investments in mutual funds and ETFs. Bancorp Investments and is not intended to be a forecast of future events or guarantee of future results. It is not intended to provide specific investment advice and should not be construed as an offering of securities or recommendation to invest.
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Pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of , U. Bancorp Investments must provide clients with certain financial information. The U. Second, the bank acts as intermediary. Usually the two non-financial partners do not know each other and do not get in touch directly to arrange a swap. This is the most common way.
As intermediary the bank enters into two offsetting swap transactions with two companies. In this case the bank has two separate contracts with each company. If one company defaults the financial institution is nevertheless obliged to honour its agreement with the other company.
So the bank takes the risk. The last role a bank can play is as an active partner. This means that the bank itself buys or sells a swap and thus takes as well a risk of credit standing and market price. The focus of this paper lies on hedging with interest rate swaps, currency swaps or cross currency swaps. But there are many other types of swaps which will be listed briefly. In terms of interest swaps i.
Furthermore it is possible to adopt the capital of a swap transaction to an amortization plan amortizing swap. The other way around the capital can be scheduled to increase in an accreting swap or step-up swap. In case of deferred or forward swaps the exchange of payments starts not before a coming agreed date. Moreover there are extendible or cancellable swaps. In terms of commodity swaps the parties do payments which are based on the price of a specified amount of a commodity whereas in equity swaps the payments base on a notional capital specified as stock portfolio.
A swaption is a special construction representing an option on a swap whose form can be either American or European. The first kind of motivation is the speculation. Speculators are not afraid of being exposed to adverse movements in the price of an asset. They observe the market and dependent on their expectation they invest in a chosen derivative with the aim to achieve a satisfying profit. They either bet on rising prices or they bet on falling prices. Both high profits and high losses may result from speculations. Say for example, today on January 1st, that a trader thinks that the pound sterling will strengthen compared to the US dollar over the following two months.
This means that he has the chance to buy an asset to this fixed rate on March 1st. If the exchange rate is i. Arbitrageurs are another type of traders. Arbitrage means that you take advantage of short-term price differences between two or more markets to achieve a profit without any risk. They are both speculators and hedgers. As markets usually have the tendency to even out any imbalance and only little price differences occur the possible profit is low in relation to the invested sum.
Therefore low transaction costs and high transaction volume constitute the requirements to be successful in Arbitrage. Now an arbitrageur could at the same time buy shares in NY and sell them in London. Hedgers are the third important group of traders and as the paper has its focus on hedging with swaps this type will be illustrated in detail in chapter 3. Like arbitrageurs a hedger wants to avoid risks concerning an investment as good as possible. Hedging means the reduction of risks of several risk categories.
The term risk is not homogenously defined in business management. A risk situation can be characterized that way that probabilities for positive or negative deviations of an expected value can be indicated contrary to the uncertainty. A risk is also the danger of the failure of a performance. In terms of economical risks not only risks are interesting which lead to payments but also those risks where a loss in the form of missed profits occur also called opportunity costs. The main goal of hedgers is the neutralization of exchange rate and interest rate fluctuations which influence a portfolio.
In return they accept a lower yield. They can secure risks by using swaps, forward contracts or other derivatives.
Taking swaps they can either use currency swaps to ensure the actual exchange rate of a currency or they can use interest rate swaps in order to ensure fix interest rates instead of unstable variable interest rates. Typical hedgers are banks, insurance companies or investors who are exposed to unexpected price fluctuation which they want to reduce. Often industrial companies, importers or exporters, are among this type of traders as they act internationally and are usually obliged to fulfill a payment or.
Single private players on the market are rare among hedgers. If an exposure or a transaction is not hedged you call this an open position whereas a hedged transaction is called a closed position.
Therefore one can say that by concluding a swap deal which is exposed to a contrary risk it is possible to hedge the basic deal. The risk of the basic deal thus represents an opportunity for the hedge and the other way round. Glaum, M. Mehring, G. Rudolph, B. Kolb, R. Hull, J. Beike, R. Happe, P.
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Table of contents List of Figures List of Abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Type of traders 3. Hedging 3. Definition 3. Hedging strategies 4. Hedging with interest rate swaps 5. Application of Currency Swaps 6. Advantages of a company at swap market 7. List of Abbreviations illustration not visible in this excerpt 1.