Hedging,selective hedging,or speculation? Evidence of the use of derivatives by Brazilian firms during the financial crisis

This paper analyse the use of foreign exchange derivatives by non-financial publicly traded Brazilian companies from 2007 to 2009. Using balance-sheet data on firms’ positions in derivatives and their foreign exchange exposure, the paper verifies the existence of three groups of derivative users: hedgers, selective hedgers – companies that significantly changed the volume of derivatives used during this period, but used them in line with their currency exposure – and active speculators – companies that adopted positions that would have been inadvisable had the aim been to hedge their currency exposure. Selective hedgers and speculators have one similarity: both tried to obtain gains through the continuous process of domestic currency appreciation. Confirming the optimal hedging literature, the paper shows that several firm characteristics are able to explain the use of derivatives and hedging by firms but market timing in the derivative markets is explained solely by firms’ foreign exposure, corporate governance and the macroeconomic environment.     

What lies beneath: Foreign exchange rate exposure,hedging and cash flows

This paper presents results from an in-depth analysis of the foreign exchange rate exposure of a large nonfinancial firm based on proprietary internal data including cash flows, derivatives and foreign currency debt, as well as external capital market data. While the operations of the multinational firm have significant exposure to foreign exchange rate risk due to foreign currency-based activities and international competition, corporate hedging mitigates this gross exposure. The analysis illustrates that the insignificance of foreign exchange rate exposures of comprehensive performance measures such as total cash flow can be explained by hedging at the firm level. Thus, the residual net exposure is economically and statistically small, even if the operating cash flows of the firm are significantly exposed to exchange rate risk. The results of the paper suggest that managers of nonfinancial firms with operations exposed to foreign exchange rate risk take savvy actions to reduce exposure to a level too low to allow its detection empirically.     

Foreign exchange exposure and multinationality

We examine the relation between firms’ foreign exchange exposure and the extent of their multinationality as a proxy for operational hedging. Using a sample of 953 US firms over the period 1999–2006, we show that there is a nonlinear relation between operational and financial hedging, confirming anecdotal evidence that many highly multinational firms do not hedge with derivatives. We find that operational hedging and financial hedging are significantly inversely related to firms’ foreign exchange exposure, providing evidence that the two hedging techniques are complementary for all but the most highly operationally hedged firms. By comparing our findings for 1999–2006 with 1999–2009, we show that this complementarity breaks down when exchange rate volatility is high – as the effectiveness of financial hedging diminishes. An important message for firms is that operational hedges work, and they potentially provide better protection than financial hedging during times of stress.     

Geographic diversification and agency costs of debt of multinational firms

This paper examines the agency conflicts between shareholders and bondholders of multinational and non-multinational firms and provides an explanation for the puzzle that multinational firms use less long-term debt, but more short-term debt than domestic firms. Using a sample of 6951 firm–year observations for multinational and domestic firms over the 1988–1994 period, we find that alternative measures of agency costs have statistically significant negative effects on the firm's long-term leverage. The results, however, also show that the negative effects of agency costs of debt on long-term leverage are significantly greater for multinational than non-multinational firms. It is documented that the effect of the agency costs of debt on leverage are increased by the firm's degree of foreign involvement. The evidence shows that firm's increasing foreign involvement exacerbates agency costs of debt leading to lower (greater) use of long-term (short-term) debt financing. This result is also confirmed using alternative measures of foreign involvement. The evidence is consistent with the view that multinational corporations (MNCs) are susceptible to higher agency costs of debt than domestic corporations because geographic diversity renders active monitoring more difficult and expensive in comparison to domestic firms. The results fail to support the view that MNCs' lower long-term debt ratios are due to the advantages of the internal capital markets.     

Exchange Rate Exposure at the Firm and Industry Level

Previous work on the exposure of firms to exchange rate risk has primarily focused on U.S. firms and, surprisingly, found stock returns were not significantly affected by exchange‐rate fluctuations. The equity market premium for exposure to currency risk was also found to be insignificant. In this paper we examine the relation between Japanese stock returns and unanticipated exchange‐rate changes for 1,079 firms traded on the Tokyo stock exchange over the 1975–1995 period. Second, we investigate whether exchange‐rate risk is priced in the Japanese equity market using both unconditional and conditional multifactor asset pricing testing procedures. We find a significant relation between contemporaneous stock returns and unanticipated yen fluctuations. The exposure effect on multinationals and high‐exporting firms, however, is found to be greater in comparison to low‐exporting and domestic firms. Lagged‐exchange rate changes on firm value are found to be statistically insignificant implying that investors are able to assess the impact of exchange‐rate changes on firm value with no significant delay. The industry level analysis corroborates the cross‐sectional findings for Japanese firms in that they are sensitive to contemporaneous unexpected exchange‐rate fluctuations. The co‐movement between stock returns and changes in the foreign value of the yen is found to be positively associated with the degree of the firm's foreign economic involvement and inversely related to its size and debt to asset ratio. Asset pricing tests show that currency risk is priced. We find corroborating evidence in support of the view that currency exposure is time varying. Our results indicate that the foreign exchange‐rate risk premium is a significant component of Japanese stock returns. The combined evidence from the currency exposure and asset pricing analyses, suggests that currency risk is priced and, therefoe, has implications for corporate and portfolio managers.     

Exposure to currency risk by US multinational corporations

Despite evidence that large US multinational corporations are hedging their exchange rate risk exposure, existing literature on the measurement of exchange rate risk does not give us a tool to measure the effect of such hedging activities of multinational firms. This paper revisited the measurement of exchange rate risk exposure using the cumulative translation adjustment as a trade-weighted dollar index faced by individual companies. We find that especially small multinational firms are exposed to foreign exchange risk and benefit from a weakening in the international value of the US dollar. The results also indicate that hedging activities by large firms are not so effective to eliminate exchange risk. Two industries in particular show a highly significant relation between changes in the cumulative translation account and equity returns, however, with an opposite sign, i.e. positive for electrical equipment and negative for primary metals.     

European Foreign Exchange Risk Exposure

We find that about 13% of our sample of 817 European multinational firms experienced economically significant exposure effects to the Japanese yen, 14% to the US dollar and 22% to the UK pound. Our evidence differs substantially from the US experience and is robust across sub‐sample periods, suggesting that a depreciating (appreciating) euro against foreign currencies has a net negative (positive) impact on European stock returns. Short‐term exposure seems to be relatively well hedged, where considerable evidence of long‐term exposure is found. Firms with weak liquidity positions tend to have smaller exposures. Foreign exposure is found to increase with firm size.     

Exchange rate risk exposure and the value of European firms

This paper presents a new assessment of the exposure of European firms to exchange rate fluctuations which takes into account the potential common drivers of exchange rates and equity market conditions. Using monthly data for European firms from 1999 to 2011, we assess the impact of unexpected fluctuations in the USD, JPY, GBP and CHF against the Euro, and show that the proportion of firms subject to exchange rate risk is considerably larger when estimation accounts for potential common drivers and firm-specific factors than otherwise. Firm exposure to exchange rate risk is affected by the level of international involvement, industry, firm size and country of origin. European firms with largely domestic operations reveal the greatest vulnerability to unexpected exchange rate movements, suggesting an opportunity to improve risk management for these companies.     

Firm‐Level Competition and Exchange Rate Exposure: Evidence from a Global Survey of Firms

We examine the effect of competition on exchange rate exposure using survey data from 55 countries. We find that exposure increases with the intensity of competition. Exposure is higher when firms face price competition in international and domestic product markets and when rivals compete using an unfair financial advantage. Furthermore, competition is a leading determinant of exposure, dominating the usual determinants. Exposure also increases with several determinants not previously empirically examined, such as firm‐level financial constraints. These results hold for small, large, foreign‐involved, and purely domestic firms. Finally, import‐only firms have higher exposure than export‐only firms. Our survey results are likely to capture exposure before firms’ hedging actions.     

Where do firms manage earnings?

Despite decades of research on how, why, and when companies manage earnings, there is a paucity of evidence about the geographic location of earnings management within multinational firms. In this study, we examine where companies manage earnings using a sample of 2,067 U.S. multinational firms from 1994 to 2009. We predict and find that firms with extensive foreign operations in weak rule of law countries have more foreign earnings management than companies with subsidiaries in locations where the rule of law is strong. We also find some evidence that profitable firms with extensive tax haven subsidiaries manage earnings more than other firms and that the earnings management is concentrated in foreign income. Apart from these results, we find that most earnings management takes place in domestic income, not foreign income.     

Do CEOs gain more in foreign acquisitions than domestic acquisitions?

This paper examines the impact of domestic and foreign acquisitions on chief executive officer (CEO) compensation packages using a sample of 147 completed bids by UK companies from 1999 to 2005. We find that foreign acquisitions lead to higher CEO compensation than domestic acquisitions. Overall, our findings suggest that CEOs have strong incentives to do foreign acquisitions rather than domestic acquisitions since they receive larger compensation following a foreign acquisition regardless of how poor firm performance is. Furthermore, we observe a positive and significant relation between CEO compensation and firm size during the pre-acquisition period for firms involved in foreign acquisitions, thus their CEOs would expect to increase their compensation package through foreign acquisitions. However, our results show that there is no significant link between firm size and CEO compensation during the pre-acquisition period for firms involved in domestic acquisitions.     

Corporate Risk Management for Multinational Corporations: Financial and Operational Hedging Policies

Under what conditions will a multinational corporation alterits operations to manage its risk exposure? We show that multinationalfirms will engage in operational hedging only when both exchangerate uncertainty and demand uncertainty are present. Operationalhedging is less important for managing short-term exposures,since demand uncertainty is lower in the short term. Operationalhedging is also less important for commodity-based firms, whichface price but not quantity uncertainty. When the fixed costsof establishing a plant are low or the variability of the exchangerate is high, a firm may benefit from establishing plants inboth the domestic and foreign location. Capacity allocated tothe foreign location relative to the domestic location willincrease when the variability of foreign demand increases relativeto the variability of domestic demand or when the expected profitmargin is larger. For firms with plants in both a domestic andforeign location, the foreign currency cash flow generally willnot be independent of the exchange rate and consequently theoptimal financial hedging policy cannot be implemented withforward contracts alone. We show that the optimal financialhedging policy can be implemented using foreign currency calland put options and forward contracts.     

Asymmetric foreign exchange risk exposure: Evidence from U.S. multinational firms

This paper examines how U.S. multinational firms are affected by foreign currency movements. In light of detailed exchange rate data, we find that 29% of our sample of 935 U.S. firms with real operations in foreign countries is significantly affected by currency movements between 1990 and 2001. Results show moreover that U.S. stock returns react asymmetrically to currency movements. By introducing nonlinearity in foreign currency risk exposure, we noticeably increase the precision and the significance of exposure estimates. We demonstrate moreover that asymmetries are more pronounced towards large versus small currency fluctuations than over depreciation and appreciation cycles.     

基于现金流模型的我国旅游业外汇风险暴露研究

汇率变动导致的国际市场需求变化会引起旅游业的外汇风险暴露。通过构建基于需求的经营性外汇风险暴露模型（经营性现金流模型）和旅游业加权汇率指数（TTWI）,采用2005—2011年国内上市旅游公司的数据,对我国旅游公司的经营性现金流进行实证分析。研究发现,有很大比例旅游公司的经营性活动暴露于外汇风险之下,其外汇风险暴露形式呈现出非线性、非对称和滞后性的特征。旅游公司在管理外汇风险暴露时,可通过投资于外币资产或使用外币负债在总现金流上分散汇率风险。     

THE ECONOMIC EXPOSURE OF U.S. MULTINATIONAL FIRMS

In this paper we find that the exchange rate exposure of individual firms increases with the return horizon. Also, the cross-sectional differences in the magnitude of exposure of individual firms are significantly related to firm size but not to the relative portion of foreign sales to total sales. The empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that hedging activities exhibit economies of scale, and, consequently, the magnitude of economic exposure is less for larger firms than for smaller firms.     

Measuring the economic importance of exchange rate exposure

This paper re-examines the nature and the economic significance of the exchange rate to firm value relation using a database of non-financial firms from over 18 countries. Our main contribution is to apply a portfolio approach to investigate the economic importance of exposure. We find that firms with high international sales outperform those with no international sales during periods of large currency depreciations by 0.72% per month, whereas they underperform by 1.10% per month during periods of large currency appreciations. In contrast to the previous literature, our evidence shows that exchange rate movements can have an economically significant impact on firm value.     

On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk—Portfolio investments and market forces

A sovereign debt crisis can have significant knock-on effects in the financial markets and put financial stability at risk. This paper focuses on the transmission of sovereign risk to insurance companies as some of the largest institutional investors in the sovereign bond market. We use a firm level panel dataset that covers large insurance companies, banks and non-financial firms from nine countries over the time period from 1 January 2008–1 May 2013. We find significant and robust transmission effects from sovereign risk to domestic insurers. The impact on insurers is not significantly different from that on banks but larger than for non-financial firms. We find that systemically important insurers are more closely linked to the domestic sovereign. Based on European data, we show that risks in sovereign bond portfolios are an important driver of insurer risk, which is not reflected in current insurance regulation (incl. Solvency II in Europe).     

The Asian exposure of U.S. firms: Operational and risk management strategies

This paper examines the Asian currency exposure of U.S. firms with regard to their international operational and risk management strategies. We find that contemporaneous and lagged changes in real exchange rates have significant impacts on firm value for about 30% of the U.S. firms with Asian operations. The effects of a strong dollar are heterogeneous, with both significantly positive and significantly negative coefficients. The exchange exposure coefficients are then estimated as a function of international operational and risk management variables. A strong dollar has an adverse effect on firm value when the firm has a negative initial exposure position, and is related to exports and local sales activities of the firms. However, asset deployment in Asia raises the exposure in absolute terms regardless of initial exposure condition. Variables for hedging incentives explain exposure in both positive and negative exposure cases. Finally, a disaggregate study by country shows significant intra-regional differences, indicating the different ways in which the U.S. firms used their Asian subsidiaries operationally.     

Exchange-rate exposure and Brexit: The case of FTSE,DAX and IBEX

This paper studies the impact of the United Kingdom's June 2016 referendum to withdraw from European Union membership (“Brexit”) on foreign exchange (FX) exposures. We collect weekly data from 26 FTSE100, 10 IBEX35, and 17 DAX30 nonfinancial multinational companies before and after the referendum. The referendum is shown to have had a positive and significant impact on the returns of the FTSE100 firms. Following the Brexit vote, firm-level FX exposures increased significantly (in absolute terms) for the 26 FTSE100 firms included in this study; however, this was not the case with the IBEX and DAX firms. On the other hand, the Brexit vote led to a reduction in exchange rate exposure at the market level. FX exposures in all three markets are reduced in absolute terms. Asymmetric specification models detect more German firms with significant FX exposures. After accounting for cross-sectional dependence in the residuals of firms within the same country, the majority of our findings are robust.     

The relevance of the invoicing currency in intra-firm trade transactions

This paper extends the invoicing currency literature to the theory of multinational firms. Even with strong tax credit provisions net payments and receipts associated with intra-firm trade usually do not consolidate to zero. The statistical behavior of the resulting transactional value is affected by the decision on the invoicing currency. Thus, a carefully chosen invoicing currency can create foreign exchange exposure which offsets some other risks of the firm. The paper examines how and under what conditions this insight is relevant to a risk-averse multinational enterprise. A preliminary empirical study generates evidence which supports our ideas.