Jul
06
Passive Currency Management
Passive currency hedging or currency management involves the creation of a currency hedging benchmark and sticking to that benchmark come what may, avoiding any slippage. As a result, it involves the taking of standard currency hedges and then continuing to roll those for the life of the investment. The two obvious ways of establishing a passive hedging strategy are for instance:
Three-month forward (rolled continuously)
Three-month at-the-money forward call (rolled continuously)
The advantage of passive currency management is that it reduces or eliminates the currency risk (depending on whether the benchmark is fully or partially hedged). The disadvantage is that it does not incorporate any flexibility and therefore cannot respond to changes in market dynamics and conditions. Passive currency management can be done either by the portfolio manager themselves or by a currency overlay manager, and focuses on reducing the overall risk profile of the portfolio.