when-a-hedge-is-not-a-hedge

When a hedge is not a hedge

Citic Pacific's $2 billion loss was characterised as a currency hedge, but if that was really its intention it had quite the opposite effect.

Nick Ferguson

October 23, 2008

Leslie Chang must have buried his head in his hands on more than a few occasions during the past few months. Before the summer, Citic Pacific's finance chief had been quietly profiting from the Aussie dollar's gentle rise against the US dollar, but his satisfaction turned to horror in July when the foreign exchange market turned suddenly and severely against him.

Thanks to a series of highly leveraged FX bets that he made, Chang, who resigned on Monday, committed Citic Pacific to buying the Aussie dollar at $0.87 even as its value collapsed to $0.65. Combined with similarly disastrous bets on the euro, Chang's trades were $1.9 billion in the red at Monday's market prices...

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