What Is a Hedging Transaction?

什么是对冲交易？

A hedging transaction is a tactical action that an investor takes with the intent of reducing the risk of losing money (or experiencing a shortfall) while executing their investment strategy.

对冲交易是投资者采取的一种战术行动，目的是在执行投资策略时降低亏损（或赤字）的风险。

Understanding Hedging Transactions

关于对冲交易

A hedging transaction usually involves derivatives, such as options or futures contracts, but it can be done with inversely correlated assets as well and can take many different forms. While they are generally used to limit the losses that a position faces if the initial investing thesis is incorrect, they can also be used to lock in a specific amount of profit. As such, they are a common tool for businesses as well as portfolio managers looking to lower their overall portfolio risk.

对冲交易通常涉及衍生品，如期权或期货合约，但它也可以用反向相关的资产进行，并且可以采取多种不同的形式。虽然它们通常用于限制最初投资论点不正确时头寸面临的损失，但它们也可以用于锁定特定金额的利润。因此，它们是企业和投资组合经理用来降低整体投资组合风险的常用工具。

Hedging transactions can be related to an investment or they can be related to regular business transactions, but the hedge itself is usually market-based. An investment-based hedging transaction can use derivatives, such as put options, futures, or forward contracts.

对冲交易可以与投资相关，也可以与常规商业交易相关，但对冲本身通常是以市场为导向的。基于投资的对冲交易可以使用衍生品，如看跌期权、期货或远期合约。

These derivatives function very similarly to the dynamics of an insurance policy. Those who purchase a derivative for the purpose of hedging pay a premium. If something goes wrong with the strategic investment, the insurance policy—a tactical hedge—pays off, but if nothing goes wrong, the hedge is a sunk cost. These costs are often much lower than the potential losses facing these investors if their investment goes awry, and if the investment pays off as hoped, these sunk costs are often considered acceptable by the investor.

这些衍生品的功能与保单的动态非常相似。那些以对冲为目的购买衍生品的人需要支付溢价。如果战略投资出了问题，则保单——一种战术对冲——会带来回报，但如果没有出现问题，对冲就是沉没成本。这些成本通常比这些投资者在投资失败时面临的潜在损失低得多，且如果投资获得了预期回报，这些沉没成本通常被投资者认为是可以接受的。

One problem with thinking of hedging transactions strictly as insurance is that, unlike insurance, there exists a third possibility often unaccounted for by inexperienced investors, namely, that the investment rises in value, but by only a small amount. In that scenario, the investor may find that the small gain has become a loss when the cost of the hedging transaction is taken into account.

将对冲交易严格视为保险的一个问题是，与保险不同的是，还存在第三种可能性，这种可能性通常不被经验不足的投资者所考虑，即投资会增值，但幅度很小。在这种情况下，考虑到对冲交易的成本，投资者可能会发现小收益变成了损失。

Investors can also use the purchase of inversely correlated assets to act as a hedge against overall portfolio risks presented from one asset or the other. For example, investors look for stocks that have a low correlation with the S&P 500 to get some level of protection from dips in the value of the widely held stocks that make up the index. These types of hedging transactions are often referred to as diversification as they do not offer the direct protection that derivatives do.

投资者还可以通过购买反向相关资产来对冲一种或另一种资产带来的整体投资组合风险。例如，投资者寻找与标准普尔500相关性较低的股票，以获得一定程度的保护，免受构成该指数的被广泛持有的股票价值下跌的影响。此类型的对冲交易通常被认为是分散性的，因为它们不像衍生品那样提供直接保护。

Hedging Transactions in Global Business

全球业务中的对冲交易

Hedging transactions are critical for the global economy. For example, if domestic company A is selling goods to foreign company B, the first transaction is the sale. Let's say the sale is going to be settled in the currency of company B. If company A is worried about currency fluctuations affecting the value of the contract when the money actually comes in and is converted to company A's domestic currency, they can enter a hedging transaction through the foreign exchange market, taking up offsetting positions that minimize the currency risk.  

对冲交易对全球经济至关重要。例如，如果国内公司A向国外公司B销售货物，第一笔交易就是销售。假设销售将以B公司的货币结算。如果A公司担心当货币实际流入并转换为A公司的本国货币时，货币波动影响合同价值，那么他们可以通过外汇市场进行对冲交易，建立抵消头寸以最大限度地降低货币风险。

It is worth noting that hedging transactions do not necessarily cover the total value of the sale or asset position. While a perfect hedge is mathematically possible, they are almost never employed because such a transaction proves more costly than desired. This can be for one of two reasons:

值得注意的是，对冲交易不一定涵盖出售或资产头寸的总价值。尽管完美的对冲在算术上是可能的，但它们几乎从未被采用，因为事实证明这种交易的成本高于预期。这可能有两个原因：

1.Eliminating all the risk takes away a lot of the reward. In hedging transactions, investors are trying to limit the downside risk, but not eliminate the upside gains.

1.消除所有风险会带走很多回报。在对冲交易中，投资者试图限制下行风险，但不会消除上行收益。

2.It may cost more time and expense to calculate, monitor, and execute a perfect hedge than the cost of accepting limited losses.

2.与接受有限损失的成本相比，计算、监控和执行完美对冲可能会花费更多的时间和费用。

（英文来源：Investopedia）