Alex Andrew, who manages a $92 million large-capitalization U.S. equity portfolio, currently forecasts that equity markets will decline soon. Andrew prefers to avoid the transaction costs of making sales but wants to hedge $12 million of the portfolio's current value using S\&P 500 futures. Because Andrew realizes that his portfolio will not track the S\&P 500 Index exactly, he performs a regression analysis on his actual portfolio returns versus the S\&P 500 futures returns over the past year. The regression analysis indicates a risk-minimizing beta of 0.86 with a correlation coefficient of 0.96 . Calculate the number of futures contracts required to hedge $12 million of Andrew's portfolio, using the data shown. Round your answer up to the nearest whole number. contracts State whether the hedge is long or short. The hedge is