hedging

1. The practice by which a business or investor limits risk by taking positions that tend to offset each other. For example, a business stands to lose money if the price of a commodity it holds declines, but it can offset this risk by agreeing to sell a specified amount of the commodity at a set price at some point in the future.

Notes

Hedge funds, which are investment funds usually open only to the very wealthy, grew in the 1990s. The near failure of one such fund in 1998, Long-Term Capital Management, sent shock waves through Wall Street .

Example Sentences

The plaque honoring “la Nueve” speaks to how memory is often overlaid by the hedging of history.

From The Daily Beast

Netanyahu has been eager to take credit for Iran's hedging of its stockpiles.

From The Daily Beast

Karl Rove says Romney has the edge in the overall vote on Election Day and in his hedging way seemed to predict a Romney triumph.

From The Daily Beast

The entire phylum of what they do is called “hedging risk,” not diving into it.

From The Daily Beast

The death of an uncle and a hedging competition are processed and recounted in due course.

From The Daily Beast

What argument does Burke use to prove that hedging in the population is not practicable?

From Project Gutenberg

I might have hedged on my own stock, but I don't believe in hedging.

From Project Gutenberg

What does a poor man do, who goes out hedging and ditching with a dead child lying in his house?

From Project Gutenberg

With the infinite number and variety of chimneys hedging me in, I naturally expected to find the sky alive with swallows.

From Project Gutenberg

It was very hard to keep up with the exactions of her family who were continually hedging her about with some new condition.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• prevarication