مقاله حسابداری ترجمه شده با عنوان ابزار مالی برای تثبیت جریانهای نقدی آتی در فرمت ورد و شامل ترجمه متن زیر می باشد:
Financial instruments to fix future cash flows
By the way, even when liabilities financing the business investments are subject to a floating rather than a fixed interest rate, a similar accounting issue may eventually emerge if the floating rate is converted to a fixed rate by means of an interest rate swap or other similar contracts. Swap contracts to pay fixed interest in exchange for receiving floating interest, are sometimes called “cash flow hedges”, since they hedge the risk of fluctuation of the interest payment against expected future operating revenue. Unlike hedges against changes in the market value, there are many complicated problems about the income recognition of changes in the market price 13).
This kind of hedging transaction increases the risk of changes in the market value of the position, while averting fluctuations in cash flows. In this respect, the same transaction can be regarded either as hedging or as speculation. However, hedging is by nature a transaction intended to avert the risk of fluctuation in the return on investments. Thus, the pattern of hedging depends on whether the relevant return is measured by changes in market value or by cash flows. In this case, since gain or loss to be hedged is the cash flows of interest payments, performance of the interest rate swap contracts can be measured by the swap differentials for each year, instead of measuring changes in the market value.
A floating rate debt combined with an interest rate swap contract is, in effect, exactly the same as a fixed rate debt. Therefore, in cases where the gain or loss on a fixed rate debt is recognized on the basis of cash flows instead of changes in market value, income on the interest rate swaps to avert fluctuation in interest payments would be recognized on the cash flow basis, in line with realization of the swap differentials. Changes in the market value in anticipation of the future cash flows have nothing to do with the performance as a hedging transaction, although it would be regarded as performance if the position is considered to be speculation 14). To assert that an interest rate swap contract is intended to hedge fluctuations in cash flows is to confirm that the debts on which the interest rate is fixed by the swap are restricted to non-financial operating assets and that the interest (and principal) is paid out from cash flowing from the operating activities. In this case, changes in the market value of the debt are not regarded as realization of cash flows. Taking this into account, the gain or loss on mark-to-market measurement of the interest rate swap contract is initially included in comprehensive income and then transferred to net income when realized as a swap differential for the year
15). Anyway, the recognition of income should depend on the nature or substance of the investment, not on the external form of the asset (that is, whether it is a financial instrument or not).Financial instrument of which valuation gain or loss does not meet the condition as realized income is not only the debt bound to the business investments as described above. One of the largest issues in FASB Statement No.115, which addresses measurement of marketable securities, was a treatment of debt securities held to maturity. Even in this statement, which has adopted mark-to-mark valuation to a large extent, it has been decided that debt securities that the enterprise intends to hold to maturity without converting into cash should be measured at amortized cost, because they are not subject to risk of market value fluctuation due to changes in interest rates.
Of course, in cases of debt securities that the enterprise intends to sell at any time, the performance of the investment entirely depends on the indefinite future market price. In such cases, the current market price is the most updated information for measuring income. However, when the debt security is held to maturity, the performance of the investment is determined by the cash flows of interest payments contracted and redemption. Assuming there would be no default, the performance of the investment is fixed at the moment the debt security is purchased. In this case, income can be determined by allocating the contracted results among periods, regardless of uncertain changes in the market price. Such an allocation provides better information about the cash flows that are fixed over the future periods 16). However, even when a decision of holding to maturity has been made, the investment may be considered still exposed to risk of market value fluctuation, if the sacrificed opportunities of profiting from short-term transactions is seen as a problem. If such a view should be taken, we would have to measure the income for each period by the changes in market value. On the other hand, if we take the fact that the enterprise has averted the risk of fluctuation in market prices and fixed the performance up to maturity as a given condition, the income for each period would be independent of fluctuation in market prices. Earnings information based on the inter-period allocation of fixed cash flows is considered useful to investors in forming expectations, in that the investment policy of the management is communicated to investors 17). As discussed above, even in the case of financial instruments, the fluctuation in market prices sometimes may not be regarded as realization of cash flows. That is also true for the cases of hedges of forecasted transactions for which there is not yet any recognized position on the balance sheet.
Although the market price is indispensable information for those financial instruments, with regard to valuation gains or losses (differences between the market value at beginning and at end of the year), we need to consider an approach of recycling them from comprehensive income to net income
when realized. Again, the critical factor is not the external form of the financial instruments, but the nature of the transactions that have generated the position 18).
مقاله حسابداری ترجمه شده با عنوان ابزار مالی برای تثبیت جریانهای نقدی آتی
