Value-At-Risk Based Approach For Currency Hedging

Corporate FX risk management has gained complexity with an increased number of currencies involved and varying correlations among them. Existing literature has highlighted the need to account for cross-currency correlations when optimizing hedge ratios for portfolio management (Dowd, 1999). In this paper, we propose a Value-at-Risk (VaR) based model to estimate the optimal hedge ratio for a multi-national corporate that aims to minimize the cost of hedging at a given tolerance level of expected loss arising out of FX movement. The paper illustrates both parametric and historical methods of VaR estimation at a portfolio level as the first step in risk management. As a second step, an efficient-frontier is derived based on the expected VaR level at various hedge ratios and compared with associated hedge cost. The benefits of this approach include: identification of net exposures after correlations among currencies are accounted for in order to avoid duplication of hedges, and condensation of the parameters governing hedging decision into a single, intuitively-appealing number. The paper also highlights the need to frequently update the model’s assumptions as currency correlations and corporate exposures remain dynamic.   JEL Classification Codes: C10, F31, G32, M20.