他们的名字有敲击，双一触和三卷蝴蝶。但包括期货、远期和期权在内的外汇衍生品已不再被视为异类;投资者越来越多地利用它们进行对冲和投机。伴随着普通期货和远期外汇，它们随着庞大的外汇现货市场而越来越受欢迎。上个月，纽约联邦储备银行外汇委员会报告称，2010年10月至2011年10月间，北美每日外汇交易量激增14.2%，达到9,770亿美元。尽管主要推动因素是现货交易大幅增加，但美联储表示，场外期权交易攀升21%，同时进行场外交易的外汇远期交易上涨11.3%。波士顿咨询公司Aite Group的高级分析师霍华德·泰(Howard Tai)说，围绕美元和欧元的波动在很大程度上是人民币升值的原因。“去年夏天美元兑外币汇率的逆转让很多人措手不及，”戴国卫表示。“当交易员措手不及，不确定市场走向时，他们不会使用现金工具，而是开始使用期权等工具，这让他们有机会，但没有义务做出对冲决定，这些决定可以在以后取消。”谁在购买这些衍生品? According to a study by the Basel, Switzerland–based Bank for International Settlements, the higher turnover in foreign currency markets was linked to more activity by “other financial institutions” — mostly hedge funds, pension funds and mutual funds. That suggests the increase was largely for speculative reasons rather than hedging. Turnover from this category swelled 42 percent between April 2007 and April 2010. The BIS study also found that daily turnover of derivatives was $168 billion on exchanges, just 7 percent of the $2.5 trillion total, so the vast majority of trading was over the counter. Yra Harris, principal at Chicago currency firm Praxis Trading Co., says he primarily uses currency futures for two reasons. Their main advantage: more-economical use of capital. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange allows far higher leverage on futures contracts than most bank foreign exchange dealers do. “The prime benefit of futures for me is the cost of my capital,” Harris says. But exchange-traded futures also offer him greater flexibility than quotations from banks, because he can take a middle position between a bank’s bid and ask prices. Although he could request a new bid from the bank, it’s often too time-consuming in a market that changes in milliseconds. Harris says he uses futures more than options, a choice reflected in statistics from the CME. Currency futures trades racked up a notional value of $29 trillion in 2011, according to the exchange, well above the $17 trillion total for 2007. Meanwhile, currency options trades were only $1.4 trillion, compared with $596 billion four years earlier. Despite the lopsided statistics, more and more companies are choosing options to reduce hedging costs, because management and clearance of currency options has become much more standardized, notes Zohar Hod, a vice president of strategic sales at SuperDerivatives, a London-based derivatives pricing and analytics firm. “A corporate treasurer who formerly hedged his risk with simple products like futures can now buy an option and reduce the cost of that hedge in the same way buying an option on IBM is less expensive than buying IBM stock,” Hod says. The spike in volatility in recent years gives banks and institutional investors more hedging possibilities, especially with exotic currency pairs like emerging-markets currencies, he adds. One sign that this market is expanding: Hod says his firm’s foreign exchange option-pricing business, which helps institutional investors determine the right price for a certain volatility scenario, has grown 30 percent annually for the past five years. Most buyers of options tend to use them to hedge risk, Hod reckons. But Christopher Geczy, an adjunct professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, says a growing number of executives at U.S. corporations who have gained expertise in hedging are now using it to speculate in currencies, according to surveys he’s conducted. This trend worries Geczy because most companies don’t break out trading gains and losses on their balance sheets. Senior executives such as corporate treasurers can earn bigger paychecks if they profit from foreign exchange transactions, so they’ve got an incentive to take speculative positions, he explains.
“这些高管报告说他们有优势，对此我相当怀疑，”格茨说。“很难想象企业高管能够预测汇率变动。如果他们能够，他们应该建立一个对冲基金。”