related to our net investment in those subsidiaries. Where exposures are hedged, our program has the effect of delaying the impact of exchange rate movements on our Consolidated Financial Statements. 

The timing for hedging exposures, as well as the type and duration of the hedge instruments employed, are guided by our hedging policies and determined based upon the nature of the exposure and prevailing market conditions. Typically, the Company may enter into hedge contracts starting 12 to 24 months in advance of the forecasted transaction and may place incremental hedges up to 100% of the exposure by the time the forecasted transaction occurs. Hedged transactions are principally denominated in Euros, British Pounds, and Japanese Yen. See section “Foreign Currency Exposures and Hedging Practices” under Item 7 for additional detail. 

Our earnings are also exposed to movements in short- and long-term market interest rates. Our objective in managing this interest rate exposure is to limit the impact of interest rate changes on earnings and cash flows and to reduce overall borrowing costs. To achieve these objectives, we maintain a mix of commercial paper, bank loans, and fixed rate debt of varying maturities and have entered into receive-fixed, pay-variable interest rate swaps for a portion of our fixed rate debt. 

Market Risk Measurement 

We monitor foreign exchange risk, interest rate risk, and related derivatives using a variety of techniques including a review of market value, sensitivity analysis, and Value-at-Risk (“VaR”). Our market-sensitive derivative and other financial instruments are foreign currency forward contracts, foreign currency option contracts, interest rate swaps, intercompany loans denominated in non-functional currencies, fixed interest rate U.S. Dollar denominated debt, and fixed interest rate Japanese Yen denominated debt. 

We use VaR to monitor the foreign exchange risk of our foreign currency forward and foreign currency option derivative instruments only. The VaR determines the maximum potential one-day loss in the fair value of these foreign exchange rate-sensitive financial instruments. The VaR model estimates assume normal market conditions and a 95% confidence level. There are various modeling techniques that can be used in the VaR computation. Our computations are based on interrelationships between currencies and interest rates (a “variance/co-variance” technique). These interrelationships are a function of foreign exchange currency market changes and interest rate changes over the preceding one year period. The value of foreign currency options does not change on a one-to-one basis with changes in the underlying currency rate. We adjust the potential loss in option value for the estimated sensitivity (the “delta” and “gamma”) to changes in the underlying currency rate. This calculation reflects the impact of foreign currency rate fluctuations on the derivative instruments only and does not include the impact of such rate fluctuations on non-functional currency transactions (such as anticipated transactions, firm commitments, cash balances, and accounts and loans receivable and payable), including those