Foreign Exchange (Forex) Risk Management

Foreign Exchange (Forex) Risk Management

By: Paul Bryan

The foreign exchange or forex market is one of the largest and most liquid financial markets in the world with a daily transaction of almost 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars. Banks, financial institutions and individual investors, therefore, have huge potential of economic gain as well as losses.

Foreign exchange risk is a potential gain or loss that occurs as a result of a change in exchange rate. In order to minimize the possibility of financial loss, every investor needs to adopt some forex risk management measures.

For minimizing forex risk, one must remember few basic points: (1) value of a currency changes frequently affecting firms and individuals engaged in international transactions; (2) assets, liabilities, and cash flows are affected through changes in the exchange rates.

So the forex market presents risks involving accounting and translation exposure, economic exposure, transaction exposure and real operating exposure.

Transactional exposures involve quite high risk for foreign exchange. Impact of exchange rate fluctuations on present cash flows, export and import, borrowing and lending in foreign currency, all can cause fluctuation in currency rates which should be considered while developing risk management features.

In most currencies there are futures or forward exchange contracts whose prices give indication on expected market prices of the currencies. These contracts can lock in the anticipated change. So the foreign exchange risk arises due to unanticipated exchange rate changes.

Foreign currency risk management involves managing two types of risk: systematic and unsystematic risk. Systematic risk affects all investments, such as the market risk, inflation risk and interest rate risk. Unsystematic risk relates to individual events that affect a particular investment, such as the business risk and financial risk. Unsystematic risk can be hedged.

If you are a trader or an investor engaged in day or intra-day trading, you must have a trading strategy at place. Your online broker or trading platform should incorporate risk management features in their trading strategies.

The signals and indicator to be generated must be based on risk analysis. You can join some professional workshop or course on foreign exchange risk management where you can learn the basics. The course should be interactive and customized where you can get your specific queries answered.

It is important that foreign currency risk management begins before the risk exposures and not after it has developed. The risk management course should include practical examples from real life incidents on basis of which you can learn the techniques of decision-making.

For calculating foreign exchange risk factors, you can find many advanced project management software that has integrated risk analysis. You can seek help from financial advisers who monitor, assess and hedge the risk in particular investments and in overall portfolios, depending on the investment objectives of the investor.

The foreign exchange risk management should use market indexes and averages in market analysis. It should consider theories of forex market behavior, including technical fundamental analysis. The risk management methods should periodically review investment objectives like safety, growth, speculation, and should always inform the investor about his or her investments.

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