Role of Currency Futures in Risk Management

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 75%, University of Westminster, language: English, abstract: Futures contracts are simple derivative instruments used for hedging purposes that is to counter financial risk. This study examines the role played by these instruments for managing risks in the global business world whilst highlighting the merits and demerits of their applications relative to other plain vanilla products (i.e. forwards, swaps and options). Further, this report presents the details on the structure/typical specifications and pricing of currency futures (CFs) contracts as well as the key differences inherent between the futures and other derivative products. In the literature review, the study seeks to answer the question on why firms need to use currency futures to hedge against FX risk, and provide a justification on the usefulness of currency futures in predicting the spot rate changes and currency futures returns. Finally, the study uses two hypothetical cases to demonstrate how CFs can effectively be used to hedge against FX risk.