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FX Initiative Blog

Actionable insights on foreign exchange risk management from FX Initiative.

August 2023 Newsletter

August FX Analyses: Explore our newsletter and discover the latest blog posts and insights from FX Initiative. We help finance, accounting, treasury, and sales professionals stay up to date with new training content, CPE webinars, and helpful tips & resources.

Get started with our foreign exchange risk management training, which provides 24/7 365 access to our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples and events at FXCPE.com. Start Training >

 

Simplifying FX Spot Transactions

Simplifying FX Spot Transactions (Video): Discover how FX spot transactions serve as the basis for all currency derivatives such as forwards, options, and option combinations. This video is a preview of FX Initiative’s FX Spot & Derivatives course as part of Learning Objective #1.

 

To learn more, start your FX risk management training today, which provides 24/7 365 access to our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples & events at FXCPE.com.

 

Time Zones & FX Trading Trends

Time Zones & FX Trading Trends (Video): Discover how time zones impact global foreign exchange (FX) market trading, volume, and liquidity. This video is a preview of FX Initiative’s FX Market Overview course as part of Learning Objective #2.

 

To learn more, start your FX risk management training today, which provides 24/7 365 access to our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples & events at FXCPE.com.

 

Mastering FX Risk Management Webinar

Program Overview

FX Initiative cordially invites you to attend our webinar titled “Mastering Currency Risk Management”. Join us for a continuing professional education (CPE) program and earn CPE credit as we address the fundamental concepts of corporate foreign exchange (FX) risk management. This informational session will share best practices on how to identify, analyze, execute, and optimize a foreign exchange (FX) risk management program. Participants will learn how to assess a firm’s FX risk profile using a step-by-step analysis framework, the four approaches for managing FX risk, the impact FX risk has on the financial statements, and key terminology and takeaways for building a world class FX risk management program.

Learning Objectives
  1. Discover how leading multinational corporations identify foreign exchange (FX) risk, including transaction, translation, and economic risk.
  2. Explore how to analyze FX risk management strategies, including balance sheet hedging, cash flow hedging, and net investment hedging.
  3. Identify key considerations when executing FX risk management plans, including the importance of strategy, policy and financial reporting.
  4. Recognize approaches to optimizing FX risk management plans by investing in personnel, resources, and operations to improve results.
Who Should Attend?

New and seasoned finance, accounting, treasury, and related professionals (CPA, CIA, CRMA, CFE, etc.) interested in international business.

Simulating Foreign Exchange Strategies

In the field of foreign exchange (FX), companies are managing currency risk exposures and hedging strategies more effectively by using business intelligence (BI) tools that provide data analysis and visualization. To support global businesses, FX Initiative offers a unique suite of specialized simulation tools that model common FX risk management strategies and demonstrate best practices for preserving assets on the balance sheet and mitigating FX gains on losses on the income statement.

Our FX Transaction Simulator helps treasury professionals gain valuable insight by modeling the economic and accounting impact of specific hedging strategies for underlying foreign exchange exposures such as revenues, expenses, receivables, and payables. Users can simply input their company specific and foreign exchange market variables, and then test a variety of hedging strategies, which include not hedging or hedging with a forward contract, vanilla option or zero cost collar.

The resulting output is a highly detailed interactive FX risk analysis that charts the economic payoff of your selected hedging strategy, ranks the alternative hedging strategies, and reports the accounting journal entries and t-accounts with authoritative references to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Behind the scenes, our robust pricing engine and database simplifies the risk analysis process for you so you can focus on the bottom line impact to your business.

This versatile tool transforms 16 inputs into one information rich analysis in 3 easy steps. The first step is to select (1) the Underlying Exposure and input the related variables of (2) Functional Currency, (3) Foreign Currency, (4) Underlying Notional Amount, (5) Beginning Exchange Rate, (6) Currency Quoting Convention, (7) Start Date, (8) End Date and (9) the Day Count. Step 2 is to select a (10) Hedging Strategy and input the related variables of (11) Hedge Ratio %, (12) Domestic Interest Rate, (13) Foreign Interest Rate, (14) Implied Volatility, and (15) the Collar Range. The third and final step is to forecast (16) the ending exchange rate to see how positive and negative changes in exchange rates impact the cash flow and financial reporting of your selected hedging strategy.

By leveraging our suite of FX risk modeling tools, finance, accounting, and treasury professionals can address a wide variety of FX scenarios that can be customized efficiently and effectively. For example, if you want to change your underlying exposure or hedge strategy, it’s as simple as one-click. If you want to know which strategy yields the best outcome, all 4 strategies are ranked for you automatically. If you want to see how the default or elective accounting treatment differ, the journal entries and t-accounts are instantly presented side-by-side. This FX Transaction Simulator acts as your own personal quantitative analyst, and puts you in a position to make more qualified foreign exchange risk management decisions.

To start simulating FX strategies, start your FX risk management training today, which provides 24/7 365 access to our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples & events at FXCPE.com.

Conquering Currency Risk Management

Conquering currency risk management involves identifying, analyzing, and prioritizing various foreign exchange (FX) exposures, and developing and implementing a coordinated and systematic plan that utilizes company resources efficiently and effectively to mitigate and optimize FX risk. An important part of mitigating FX risk is hedging exposures such as revenues, expenses, receivables, payables, assets, liabilities, and equity.

The degree to which companies implement adequate foreign exchange risk management practices can vary substantially, from not managing the risk at all to engaging in robust hedging activities. As a result, the FX impact on the bottom line can vary widely across organizations.

Global companies face questions including, but not limited to: How to manage currency risk? How to draft a FX risk policy? Where to look for FX risk exposures? What currency risks to hedge and how? Which strategies meet FX hedge objectives? What are the economics? How to do FX accounting? That's a lot of questions! It's time to take the FX Initiative!

FX Initiative's foreign exchange risk management training starts with watching our online video series about:

  1. Foreign Exchange (FX) Market Overview
  2. FX Risk Exposures
  3. FX Risk Management
  4. FX Spot & Derivatives
  5. Hedging FX Transactions
  6. Hedging Foreign Subsidiaries

Then, review and test with quizzes and CPE exams, and reinforce learning using real examples with our:

FX Initiative training is available 24/7 365 to help you with FX risk policies, FX accounting, FX hedging strategies, FX risk management, and more.

Are you ready to manage FX risk? Become a FX Initiative subscriber today and access our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples and events at FXCPE.com. Managing FX risk has become a higher priority for many firms in 2022 and it is now easier than ever to learn the fundamentals of currency risk management. Make this the year to reduce FX risk and reap rewards abroad by taking the FX Initiative for your international business today!

Clarifying Currency Quoting Conventions

Clarifying Currency Quoting Conventions (Video): Distinguish the difference between direct and indirect currency quotations. This video is a preview of FX Initiative’s FX Market Overview course as part of Learning Objective #2.

 

To learn more, start your FX risk management training today, which provides 24/7 365 access to our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples & events at FXCPE.com.

 

March 2023 Newsletter

March FX Risk Management Mastery: Read our March newsletter and discover the latest blog posts and insights from FX Initiative on currency risk management. We help finance, accounting, treasury, and sales professionals stay up to date with new training content, CPE webinars, and helpful tips & resources.

Scale the learning curve quickly and easily with our foreign exchange risk management training, which provides 24/7 365 access to our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples and events at FXCPE.com. Start Training >

 

White Label Web Applications

FX Initiative's white label web applications are designed to help treasury professionals and FX sales teams with a wide variety of foreign exchange (FX) risk management challenges and opportunities. Whether you are creating a FX risk policy or analyzing economic and accounting scenarios, our risk models and strategy simulations share best practices in easily understandable formats.

Examples include:

  • FX Risk Policy
  • FX Terms Glossary
  • ISO Currency Codes
  • Foreign Subsidiaries
  • FX Revenues
  • FX Expenses
  • FX Receivables
  • FX Payables
  • FX Spot Transactions
  • FX Forward Contracts
  • FX Option Contracts
  • FX Zero Cost Collars

 

Our white label web applications are branded with the client's logo and embedded as an iframe into the client's website. An iframe is one of the most convenient HTML structures, and is an embedded window on the client’s web page that shows content hosted on FX Initiative’s servers. In 4 simple steps, our solutions can be deployed on the client's website quickly and easily with minimal technology resources.


Learn More

February 2023 Newsletter

February FX Education: Read our newsletter and discover the latest blog posts and insights from FX Initiative on currency risk management. We help finance, accounting, and treasury professionals stay up to date with training content, CPE webinars, and helpful resources.

Scale the learning curve quickly and easily with our foreign exchange risk management training, which provides 24/7 365 access to our complete suite of foreign exchange (FX) continuing professional education (CPE), examples and events at FXCPE.com. Start Training >