My struggle with devaluation
The stupidest situation is - I took a mortgage loan in US dollars (USD), and then the crisis - the dollar began to grow by leaps and bounds, the payment began to take away an increasing part of my ruble wages. I began to look painfully, how can I stop this madness - how to slow down the growth of payments on a loan, and the rise in price of the entire loan as a whole?
After talking with colleagues, it turned out that I still had all the chocolate, the mortgage payment did not exceed 30% of the salary, the dollar in general did not jump too hard. One of the colleagues had a critical situation - the Bank of Moscow loan in Swiss francs (CHF) before the crisis took ~ 50% of salary, besides, the franc rose against the dollar - from November 2008 to January 2009 by 15 percent.
Valar is looking for where to get money
The first thing that came to my mind was to take a huge ruble loan, convert it into dollars and, thus, solve the problem. Unfortunately, the growth of the dollar occurred against the background of the credit crisis - i.e. it was impossible to take even a small credit card, let alone several million rubles.
The second came to my mind Forex. At Forex, people exchange one currency for another, and thus it would seem that the currency risk can be balanced. At that moment, the government said that it supports the rate of the dual currency basket, and accordingly, if the value of the dual currency basket is constant, then it is enough to compensate for the growth of the dollar against the euro. It seemed to me that a solution was found. Indeed, by making a small guarantee payment, you can use the leverage of 1: 100 and having $ 2,000 in your hands to buy 200,000 USD per euro, then if the dollar rises against the euro, the Forex account makes a profit, and if the dollar falls, then the loan becomes cheaper. Unfortunately, the authorities failed to keep the currency basket - the ruble began to fall relative to the basket - 35, 36, 37 rubles. From the movement of the ruble down relative to the basket Forex can not save - the ruble is not a freely convertible currency and is not traded in Forex. A Briton or a Swiss can easily balance currency risk and take a mortgage in yen at 1% per annum - but for a resident of the Russian Federation this is a huge problem, jumping out of the ruble into currency, gold or another reliable asset.
A web search gave me another clue - a currency swap. A currency swap is a contract in which the parties exchange a certain amount of one currency for another. A classic example is if an American firm has a branch in France, then it needs to pay a salary in euros, and it receives a profit in dollars. To avoid conversion, a US firm enters into a currency swap with a European firm having a branch in the USA, they change amounts in dollars and euros and pay wages from this money in foreign branches. The search for swaps from the ruble to the dollar did not give any special results, with the exception of a few suspicious financial organizations that are not regulated by anyone and look like a “kitchen” or a scam.
')
It turned out that there is a financial tool to protect against currency risk. This instrument is a futures on the dollar-ruble exchange rate of the FORTS section of the RTS exchange. It contains all the features that I need: a small security for a contract equivalent to a shoulder from 1: 7 to 1:30, high sensitivity of the futures to the price of the underlying asset - the dollar, high liquidity.
A man went on a cruise - on the ship on the Atlantic. Came with a full suitcase of money. Wife:
- Where did you get it?!
- Yes, I was in England, went to the casino. I see men sit and play poker. I sat down with them, we play small, and then one man says: "I have a point." I told him: “Show me!” And he says to me: “We have all the gentlemen here, they all believe the word for each other ...” And here I have flooded such a card! ..
Folk
Now that the solution was found, it remained only to embody it. Before the new year, we were given a salary, and on December 30, for 50,000 rubles, I bought 14 futures with a par value of $ 1,000 each at 30.50. The following trades were supposed only on January 11th, after the New Year holidays. As everyone remembers, at the opening of the dollar jumped up and futures immediately gave a good profit. I immediately used the profit to buy new futures, etc., until they were 200. At this point, my setup changed to the opposite, I used to fear the growth of the dollar, and now I met the news about the growth rate with joy, which is called “the worse it is better". From this point on, I was completely protected from the growth rate - wherever the rate moved, it was profitable for me: either my credit was getting cheaper, or I received immediate compensation from futures.
Of course, the operation was carried out imperfectly. If I immediately had a sufficient amount in my hands, I would be able to fully protect the loan body from appreciation, but even partial compensation for the appreciation of the loan made the devaluation not so terrible. This experience shows that it can be helpful for anyone to know how the financial market works, even for IT.
After talking with colleagues, it turned out that I still had all the chocolate, the mortgage payment did not exceed 30% of the salary, the dollar in general did not jump too hard. One of the colleagues had a critical situation - the Bank of Moscow loan in Swiss francs (CHF) before the crisis took ~ 50% of salary, besides, the franc rose against the dollar - from November 2008 to January 2009 by 15 percent.
Valar is looking for where to get money
The first thing that came to my mind was to take a huge ruble loan, convert it into dollars and, thus, solve the problem. Unfortunately, the growth of the dollar occurred against the background of the credit crisis - i.e. it was impossible to take even a small credit card, let alone several million rubles.
The second came to my mind Forex. At Forex, people exchange one currency for another, and thus it would seem that the currency risk can be balanced. At that moment, the government said that it supports the rate of the dual currency basket, and accordingly, if the value of the dual currency basket is constant, then it is enough to compensate for the growth of the dollar against the euro. It seemed to me that a solution was found. Indeed, by making a small guarantee payment, you can use the leverage of 1: 100 and having $ 2,000 in your hands to buy 200,000 USD per euro, then if the dollar rises against the euro, the Forex account makes a profit, and if the dollar falls, then the loan becomes cheaper. Unfortunately, the authorities failed to keep the currency basket - the ruble began to fall relative to the basket - 35, 36, 37 rubles. From the movement of the ruble down relative to the basket Forex can not save - the ruble is not a freely convertible currency and is not traded in Forex. A Briton or a Swiss can easily balance currency risk and take a mortgage in yen at 1% per annum - but for a resident of the Russian Federation this is a huge problem, jumping out of the ruble into currency, gold or another reliable asset.
A web search gave me another clue - a currency swap. A currency swap is a contract in which the parties exchange a certain amount of one currency for another. A classic example is if an American firm has a branch in France, then it needs to pay a salary in euros, and it receives a profit in dollars. To avoid conversion, a US firm enters into a currency swap with a European firm having a branch in the USA, they change amounts in dollars and euros and pay wages from this money in foreign branches. The search for swaps from the ruble to the dollar did not give any special results, with the exception of a few suspicious financial organizations that are not regulated by anyone and look like a “kitchen” or a scam.
')
Eureka!
It turned out that there is a financial tool to protect against currency risk. This instrument is a futures on the dollar-ruble exchange rate of the FORTS section of the RTS exchange. It contains all the features that I need: a small security for a contract equivalent to a shoulder from 1: 7 to 1:30, high sensitivity of the futures to the price of the underlying asset - the dollar, high liquidity.
A man went on a cruise - on the ship on the Atlantic. Came with a full suitcase of money. Wife:
- Where did you get it?!
- Yes, I was in England, went to the casino. I see men sit and play poker. I sat down with them, we play small, and then one man says: "I have a point." I told him: “Show me!” And he says to me: “We have all the gentlemen here, they all believe the word for each other ...” And here I have flooded such a card! ..
Folk
Now that the solution was found, it remained only to embody it. Before the new year, we were given a salary, and on December 30, for 50,000 rubles, I bought 14 futures with a par value of $ 1,000 each at 30.50. The following trades were supposed only on January 11th, after the New Year holidays. As everyone remembers, at the opening of the dollar jumped up and futures immediately gave a good profit. I immediately used the profit to buy new futures, etc., until they were 200. At this point, my setup changed to the opposite, I used to fear the growth of the dollar, and now I met the news about the growth rate with joy, which is called “the worse it is better". From this point on, I was completely protected from the growth rate - wherever the rate moved, it was profitable for me: either my credit was getting cheaper, or I received immediate compensation from futures.
Of course, the operation was carried out imperfectly. If I immediately had a sufficient amount in my hands, I would be able to fully protect the loan body from appreciation, but even partial compensation for the appreciation of the loan made the devaluation not so terrible. This experience shows that it can be helpful for anyone to know how the financial market works, even for IT.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/62243/
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