The following articles on risk management, hedge accounting and other topics may be freely downloaded with our compliments:

New Articles

1. Applying FAS 157 to FAS 133 describes how the impact of FAS 157 on FAS 133 is not as great as some auditors may think: derivative liabilities do not have to be faired value. This article will be sure to generate some discussions with your auditors.
2. Investing Corporate Cash is a presentation that was given at Treasury & Risk Management's March 2008 Vision conference. 238K pdf.
3. Modern Corporate Risk Management, a new presentation summarizing the latest thinking on FX risk management, including an analysis of how economic and industry factors drive differences in FX hedging. Includes a list of 7 common corporate FX mistakes. 238K pdf.
4. Corporate Commodity Risk Management explains how commodity hedging differs from FX hedging and provides a process for corporates on developing a practical hedging program. 234K pdf.
5. Using Technology to Reduce Transactions Costs is a revised version of a presentation giving to the Treasurer's Council of the Conference in late 2007.

Risk Management

1. Modern Corporate Risk Management, a new presentation summarizing the latest thinking on FX risk management, including an analysis of how economic and industry factors drive differences in FX hedging. Includes a list of 7 common corporate FX mistakes. 238K pdf.
2. Corporate Commodity Risk Management explains how commodity hedging differs from FX hedging and provides a process for corporates on developing a practical hedging program. 234K pdf.
3. A Metric Approach to Risk Management outlines a risk management policy framework applicable to corporate commodity, FX, interest rate and investment risks. It addresses the major fault of many corporate policies — the lack of metrics showing the value-added that risk management provides. Without metrics, the default metric will always be whether or not the hedges made money, a loser's game for treasury. 782K pdf.
4. The Group of 31 Report: Core Principles for Managing MNC Foreign Exchange Risk is based upon a study sponsored by General Motors with 31 world-class companies. This detailed study shows how these companies write their FX policies and manage their FX risks, highlighting 12 principles. It also shows how these principles can be applied to other companies based upon their own particular circumstances. 234K pdf.
5. Treasury Performance Measures: Metrics and Benchmarks is an expanded version of a presentation given by Jeff Wallace at the October 2003 European MNC EuroFinance conference in Barcelona. It provides specific metrics and fair benchmarks for foreign exchange, interest rate risk and cash management. 508K pdf.
6. Model Trading Mandate Letter. All derivative trading should be authorized under a trading mandate letter. In an editable Word format, this model letter will lead to meaningful conversations with your bankers about how willing they are to restrict your traders' deal making to your policy and what happens when trades go bad. 53K doc.

Hedge Accounting

1. FAS 133 Revisited, which shows how to master this complex standard, including dealing with increased scrutiny on critical terms. 721K pdf.
2. Recent Developments in GAAP Treasury Accounting, which discusses FAS 157 and FAS 159 on fair valuing and the fair value option, the exposure draft on expanded FAS 133 disclosure reporting (effective for all 2007 year-end companies) and recent 2007 DIG issues. 223K pdf.
3. Basic Concepts of FAS 133. A recent presentation on FAS 133 that was given to the Conference Board. 190K .pdf
4. Effective Hedging Under IAS 39 is an April 2004 analysis of the major apparent differences between FAS 133 and IAS 39, and how many of these differences can be resolved. This includes 100% effective hedges for perfect interest and cross-currency interest rate swaps, hedging forecast interco flows, netting of offsetting cash flow FX exposures and option hedging under IAS 39. 42K pdf.
5. Derivative Accounting & Hedging Under FAS 133 is a concise introduction to the complexities of FAS 133. The basic concepts of FAS 133 are explained, including how effectiveness testing actually works. Strategies are given for minimizing termination risk, P&L ineffectiveness and P&L forecast error. An earlier version of this article appeared as the FAS 133 chapter in The International Finance and Accounting Handbook (2003, John Wiley & Sons). 1,219K pdf.
6. Option Hedging Strategies under FAS 133 provides a summary of FAS 133/G20 option accounting with 133 paragraph and DIG issue references. It then discusses various option hedging strategies, and uses GTA FX benchmarking to show that active option management is a mainstream corporate practice that is actually a better and more conservative approach than a buy-and-hold strategy. 94K pdf.
7. Dual-Spot Effectiveness Testing describe a little-known effectiveness testing technique that is quite useful when there is uncertainty around the timing of the hedged forecast and one wishes to document that the forecast will occur within a longer period than one month.

Technology

1. Using Technology to Reduce Transactions Costs is a revised version of a presentation giving to the Treasurer's Council of the Conference in late 2007.
2. Payment Factories, what they are, how they work and the major implementation issues. 114K .pdf
3. Selecting Treasury Workstations, 121K .pdf
4. Treasury System Tips, which supplements the Selecting Treasury Workstations presentation with a focus on system implementations. html page.
5. Treasury Intranets, an old, but still useful, summary of how treasuries are using their intranets to improve communications within their organization. 792K .pdf

Investments

1. Investing Corporate Cash is a presentation that was given at Treasury & Risk Management's March 2008 Vision conference. 238K pdf.
2. Global Shot Term Investing Practices, an expanded version of a presentation given at EuroFinance North American MNC Conference in Miam in April 2007. 214K pdf.