IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/coacre/v32y2015i1p243-279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Fair Value of Cash Flow Hedges, Future Profitability, and Stock Returns

Author

Listed:
  • John L. Campbell

Abstract

The SEC and FASB recently expressed concerns that investors do not fully assimilate all of the information provided by complex and incomplete derivatives and other comprehensive income (OCI) disclosures. My evidence supports these concerns. Specifically, I examine the information content of unrealized cash flow hedge gains/losses for future profitability and stock returns. An unrealized gain on a cash flow hedge suggests that the price of the underlying hedged item (i.e., commodity price, foreign currency exchange rate, or interest rate) moved in a direction that will impair the firm's profits after the hedge expires. Consequently, I find that unrealized cash flow hedge gains/losses are negatively associated with future gross profit after the firm's existing hedges have expired. This association only holds after the firm has reclassified its hedges into earnings, and is weaker for firms that can pass input price changes on to their customers. Finally, investors do not immediately price the cash flow hedge information. Instead, investors appear surprised by future realizations of gross margin, consistent with the view that complex and incomplete disclosures delay pricing. These results are relevant to policymakers involved in the current FASB and IASB project designed to simplify the accounting and disclosure for derivatives and, in particular, cash flow hedges.

Suggested Citation

  • John L. Campbell, 2015. "The Fair Value of Cash Flow Hedges, Future Profitability, and Stock Returns," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 243-279, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:coacre:v:32:y:2015:i:1:p:243-279
    DOI: 10.1111/1911-3846.12069
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12069
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1911-3846.12069?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anbil, Sriya & Saretto, Alessio & Tookes, Heather, 2019. "How does hedge designation impact the market’s perception of credit risk?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 25-42.
    2. Akhigbe, Aigbe & Makar, Stephen & Wang, Li & Whyte, Ann Marie, 2018. "Interest rate derivatives use in banking: Market pricing implications of cash flow hedges," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 113-126.
    3. Huimin Guo & Zheyao Pan & Gary Gang Tian, 2021. "State ownership and the risk‐reducing effect of corporate derivative use: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5-6), pages 1092-1133, May.
    4. Tharindra Ranasinghe & Konduru Sivaramakrishnan & Lin Yi, 2022. "Hedging, hedge accounting, and earnings predictability," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 35-75, March.
    5. Hairston, Stephanie A. & Brooks, Marcus R., 2019. "Derivative accounting and financial reporting quality: A review of the literature," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 81-94.
    6. Sikalidis, Alexandros & Bozos, Konstantinos & Voulgaris, Georgios, 2023. "Asymmetric effects of fair value adjustments on dividend policy," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    7. John L. Campbell & Mark Cecchini & Anna M. Cianci & Anne C. Ehinger & Edward M. Werner, 2019. "Tax-related mandatory risk factor disclosures, future profitability, and stock returns," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 264-308, March.
    8. Philippe Touron, 2016. "Mesures de la performance et les autres éléments du résultat global (OCI) : état de l'art," Post-Print hal-01902529, HAL.
    9. Yulia Titova & Henry Penikas & Nikita Gomayun, 2020. "The impact of hedging and trading derivatives on value, performance and risk of European banks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 535-565, February.
    10. Brian Bratten & Monika Causholli & Urooj Khan, 2016. "Usefulness of fair values for predicting banks’ future earnings: evidence from other comprehensive income and its components," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 280-315, March.
    11. Sticca, Ralph Melles & Nakao, Silvio Hiroshi, 2019. "Hedge accounting choice as exchange loss avoidance under financial crisis: Evidence from Brazil," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    12. Guay, Wayne & Samuels, Delphine & Taylor, Daniel, 2016. "Guiding through the Fog: Financial statement complexity and voluntary disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 234-269.
    13. Joshua Anderson & Yiting Cao & Edward J. Riedl & Scarlett Xiaotong Song, 2023. "Other comprehensive income, its components, and analysts’ forecasts," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 792-826, June.
    14. Haislip, Jacob Z. & Richardson, Vernon J., 2017. "The effect of Customer Relationship Management systems on firm performance," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 16-29.
    15. Johannes Thesing & Patrick Velte, 2021. "Do fair value measurements affect accounting-based earnings quality? A literature review with a focus on corporate governance as moderator," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(7), pages 965-1004, September.
    16. Sudipta Basu & Eunju (Ivy) Lee, 2022. "Antecedents of and outcomes after finance committee use," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3-4), pages 491-535, March.
    17. He, Liyu & Hsin-han Shen, Carl & Shiu, Cheng-Yi, 2022. "Is fair value information fairly priced? Evidence from IPOs in global capital markets✰," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    18. Su, Kun & Zhang, Miaomiao & Liu, Chengyun, 2022. "Financial derivatives, analyst forecasts, and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from an emerging market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    19. Chongwu Xia & Chuyi Yang & Lei Zhang, 2021. "The real effect of foreign exchange hedging on corporate innovation," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(12), pages 2046-2078, December.
    20. Dane M. Christensen & Hengda Jin & Suhas A. Sridharan & Laura A. Wellman, 2022. "Hedging on the Hill: Does Political Hedging Reduce Firm Risk?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4356-4379, June.
    21. Campbell, John L. & Mauler, Landon M. & Pierce, Spencer R., 2019. "A review of derivatives research in accounting and suggestions for future work," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 44-60.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:coacre:v:32:y:2015:i:1:p:243-279. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1911-3846 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.