Equity Swap

An equity swap is an exchange of future cash flows between two parties that allows each party to diversify its income for a specified period of time while still holding its original assets. An equity swap is similar to an interest rate swap, but rather than one leg being the fixed side, it is based on the return of an equity index. The two sets of nominally equal cash flows are exchanged as per the terms of the swap, which may involve an equity-based cash flow (such as from a stock asset, called the reference equity) that is traded for fixed-income cash flow (such as a benchmark interest rate).