Pixonix Inc

This case shows us that apart from transaction, translation and economic exposure to currency risk, firms also have the very real strategic impact on their competitive position from competitive exposure. Apart from GM’s exposure to the yen which is reflected in their financial statements, their competitive position vis-à-vis Japanese manufacturers is affected by a potentially declining yen. This is because a declining yen reduces the Japanese manufacturers’ $ cost, enabling them to pass on some of the benefit to US customers and thus taking some of GM’s market share. This will impact GM’s top and bottom line. However, GM has a difficult decision regarding managing this risk.

* With the event “March 20” – Dhawan will miss the original schedule. However, he still receive profit with 3 events analysed in Question 1: pay 50%, pay 30% and pay 20%. We will use the result of question 1 in the event “delay” – He will lose 225,528 INR .

American Barrick is the largest gold producer in North America. The implementation of the gold-hedging program differentiated the firm from other major gold rivals and improved its reserve and financial strength. In 1995, American Barrick ’s latest gold find necessitated the company to determine a new hedge strategy for its gold production.

Mr. Lee and the other executives expect to generate a higher profit from hedging since they have majority of their personal wealth invested into the firm. The focus of any hedging program should always be to minimize the firm’s risk of loss, but that does not mean the they will

The current 50% hedging policy executed at the fund level has served well for OTPP for the past ten years, contributing to the fund’s positive returns. The FX Hedge Program not only has minimized the downside risk, but has also limited the upside potential. If OTPP decided not to implement a hedging program in 1996, they would have lost about $983 million CAD over the ten year period (1995-2005) which is valued at 2% of the portfolio. With the hedging program, OTPP was able to reduce the overall loss to about $469 million CAD, but also limited the gain from the depreciation of the pound.(Exhibit 1) Hedging is an excellent short-term risk minimizing strategy for long term investors, sustaining a continual payout of pensions during volatile times in OTPP’s invested currency markets. Currently, approximately 21% of OTPP’s net assets are exposed to foreign currency risk. Consequently, it is essential that OTPP maintain a risk management program of hedging, as slight currency fluctuations can significantly affect the value of the fund. Similarly to continual renewal of swaps, hedging can be a very expensive risk management strategy.

General Motors Corporation, the world’s largest automaker, has an extensive global outreach, which places the firm in competition with automakers worldwide, and subjects itself to significant exchange rate exposure. In particular, despite most of its revenues and production being derived from North America, depreciating yen rates pose problems for the firm indirectly through economic exposure. While GM possesses ‘passive’ hedging strategies for balance sheet and income statement exposures, management has not yet quantified or recognized solutions to possible losses from the indirect competitive exposure it now shared with Japanese automakers in the U.S import

On the other hand, the peso devaluation will not have that much of a positive effect on Farmington (Antilles) N.V. as the peso depreciates relative to the USD. The result is the subsidiary being negatively impacted as the USD/peso exchange rate is rising, as they convert revenue earned in pesos to USD to deposit into U.S. bank accounts. This facility had almost 4 million MXN receivables at the end of the year. The 1994 average exchange rate is 3.5 MXN/USD, where these 4 million MXNs would equate to approximately 1.14 million USD. When the exchange rate values the devalued peso at 5.0 MXN/USD, these 4 million MXNs are only equal to 0.80 million USDs, showing a loss of more than 300,000 USDs. When the exchange rate changes from 4.0 to 5.0 MXN/USD, we can see the loss the company would experience, and thus the negative impact on this facility.

c. Exchange rate risks: significant portion of revenue stream born currency exchange risk (peso vs. USD) regardless of geographical and product diversification. These risks were absolutely external and thus could have been hardly mitigated.

Question 2: Assume that Jim is subject to a $5,000,000 position limit. What position should he take to exploit the mispricing for the March '86 MMI futures?

Given the nature of its business, Jaguar is faced with three types of exchange rate exposure (1) Transaction, (2) Translation and (3) Economic . Transaction exposures arise whenever the firm commits (or is contractually obligated) to make or receive a payment at a future date denominated in a foreign currency. Translation exposures arise from accounting based changes in consolidated financial statements caused by a change in exchange rates. In this case we primarily focus on the Economic exposure -also known as Operating exposure or Competitive exposure- of Jaguar.

But, even though the possibility of winning exists, the company is exposed to a greater risk if it does not hedge. Moreover, the policy of the company is to ensure against the risk, not to speculate on the foreign exchange market.

Established in January 1999, Pine Street Capital (PSC) was a market-neutral hedge fund that specialized in the technology field, facing market risk and trying to decide whether and which way to use in order to hedge equity market risk. They choose technology sector because the partners of PSC felt that they have enough ability to evaluate this sector and specially be good at picking out-performing stock. Short-selling of NASDAQ and options hedging strategy are the two major hedging choices for PSC. Either strategy has its own advantages in different economic periods and conditions. The fund has just through one of the most volatile periods in NASDAQ 's history, and it was trying to decide whether it should continue its risk management

Nevertheless, the company Aspen needs to hedge its account. Indeed, they are in the case of economic distress: they care about their image (they need to show their robustness to their customers), they want to show the stability of the company (smoothing the account figures rather than the cash flow), and even if they need cash, they want to avoid any impact to the clients.

Current Strategy. The company has been hedging the US dollar long position by estimating its annual US dollar sales and hedging that exposure by purchasing put options on the US dollar (the right to sell US dollars for euros at a specific exchange rate). The company has been purchasing these options in what it refers to as a “three-year rolling hedge” in which it hedges expected US dollar sales three years out

Dell, being global in its marketing and operations, is exposed to fluctuations in the World currency markets. Although it is a very lean organization, orders do have to be placed some time ahead due to their size or value. Changes in exchange rates could leave the company exposed to potential loses in parts of its