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Finance : Finance A Carry Trade

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In finance a carry trade is a strategy that consists of borrowing at a low interest rate currency to fund investment in higher yielding currencies. (Moffett) The country in which the investors borrow from is called the funding country and the country where the investment occurs is called the target country. (4) Carry trade is also termed currency carry trade; this strategy is speculative in that the currency risk is present and not managed or hedged. (Moffett) Although there are several complicated carry trades in finance, the most popular are carry trades in the foreign exchange market, which I will discuss in this paper and its role in the financial crisis of 2008.

This strategy is executed by using the following the next steps: An …show more content…

Another is the change in exchange rates, which also affect the amount required to pay back and ultimately the profit. As we know currency exchange rates and interest rates can change in the matter of seconds, causing uncertainty therefore creating more risk in addition to the risk created by leveraging.

An example of a carry trade can be watched on Khan Academy, where the instructor explains in detail the concept of a carry trade. In this video the instructors states the following, there are two countries A & B. Country A’s economy is stagnating and facing a deflationary crisis causing the Central Bank to lower interest rates and print out as much money. While country B has higher interest rates and is most likely facing inflation. An opportunistic investor will see the opportunity to borrow at low interest rate and invest in a high yielding currency. Once the investor has executed the carry trade, which involves borrowing in a low interest currency (funding country) and converting it to a higher interest currency (target country). Then reinvesting that amount into bonds of the target country. The yield gained from this strategy would be the difference between interest rates of the funding and target country holding the exchange rate constant, which in reality is impossible. In this video the instructor also talks about when the carry trade

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