Although the question of
currency hedging appears to be binary, there may be a third choice.
As long as some portion of an investor's portfolio is in foreign stocks, evidence suggests that those stocks should not be currency - hedged for three reasons: (1) Currency unhedged portfolios are not much more volatile than currency - hedged ones (and less volatile for US markets) and (2)
Currency hedging appears to add about 1 % extra cost and (3) Some currency unhedged positions reduce overall portfolio volatility.
Not exact matches
While switching to
currency hedged ETFs might
appear to be removing
currency exposure, it's actually concentrating that risk.
Vanguard does not
appear to offer
currency hedged products in London while iShares does.
Hedging foreign exchange risk resulting from global equity exposure is entirely reasonable when foreign
currencies appear expensive and likely to take a nosedive versus the Canadian dollar.
Another highly - recommended discussion about the impracticality of
hedging EM
currencies recently
appeared on ETF.com's website under the title «
Currency Hedged ETFs Not All Created Equal.»
If past performance is any indication and if investment performance is the only consideration, it
appears that investors will likely be better off obtaining direct exposure to foreign equities without
hedging away
currency exposure.
@Rob: To twist your metaphor a little bit, it
appears that when it comes to
currency hedging, the cost of those premiums do not seem to ever cover the cost of the house burning down.
He recalled that over one hundred cryptocurrency
hedge funds have
appeared within the last year, and the potential amount of funds that large investors would like to invest in such
currencies is about $ 10 billion.