The leading automakers in Germany have long been some of the world$$s biggest advocates of currency hedging. Companies like BMW$,$ Mercedes, Porsche$$and Porsche$$s owner Volkswagen$$have aggressively hedged their foreign currency earnings for years in response to their structural exposure: while they manufacture in the eurozone, they increasingly rely on sales in dollar, yen, or other foreign $($non$-$euro$)$ currency markets. How individual companies hedge, however, differs dramatically. Some companies, like BMW$,$ state clearly that they $$hedge to protect earnings,$$ but that they do not speculate. Others, like Porsche and Volkswagen in the past, have some times generated more than $40\%$ of their earnings from their $$hedges$.$ Hedges that earn money continue to pose difficulties for regulators, auditors, and investors worldwide. How a hedge is defined, and whether a hedge should only $$cost$$ but not $$profit$,$ has delayed the implementation of many new regulatory efforts in the United States and Europe in the post$-2008$ financial crisis era. If a publicly traded company$$for example, an automaker$$can consistently earn profits from hedging, is its core competency automobile manufacturing and assembly, or hedging$/$speculating on exchange rate movements? Comment on this.