By Laura Matthews
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Precidian Investments launched hedged ADRs on Monday that U.S. investors can use to buy foreign-listed stocks while limiting the impact of fluctuating currencies.
Precidian, an exchange-traded fund developer, said it will list the hedged American Depositary Receipts on Cboe's U.S. equities exchange.
Investors buying shares of companies overseas, including ADRs, are exposed to fluctuating exchange rates between the dollar and the foreign currency. But by coupling the ADRs with a currency overlay into one security, investors can mitigate currency exposure, said Cboe.
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will be the counterparty providing the currency hedge.
"This really is the next generation ADR for U.S. investors," Rob Marrocco, global head of ETP listings at Cboe, told Reuters. The product will be called ADRhedged.
Cboe's U.S. equities exchange will initially list AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) ADRhedged, HSBC Holdings (NYSE:HSBC) ADRhedged and Shell (LON:SHEL) ADRhedged and anticipates adding another 14 soon after.
Stuart Thomas, founding principal at Precidian, told Reuters that the more than $1 trillion ADR market has needed a hedged alternative for decades.
ADRhedged comes as the greenback's appreciation against most global currencies over the past decade has caused ADR investments to underperform in dollar terms, said Cboe.
"People have been buying them for years, but the average investor has not had access to a currency hedge overlay for international investing," said Thomas. "Now you've got another set of tools at your disposal."