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.