Putting away foreign hat signs (8)
I believe the answer is:
stashing
'putting away' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with ownership as well as being present participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'foreign hat signs' is the wordplay.
'foreign' indicates an anagram (foreign order of the letters).
'hat'+'signs'='hatsigns'
'hatsigns' is an anagram of 'STASHING'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for stashing that I've seen before include "Stowing away" , "Storing in a secret place" , "stocking, secretly" .)