IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/6661.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Lies Beneath: Foreign Exchange Rate Exposure, Hedging and Cash Flows

Author

Listed:
  • Bartram, Söhnke M.

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartram, Söhnke M., 2007. "What Lies Beneath: Foreign Exchange Rate Exposure, Hedging and Cash Flows," MPRA Paper 6661, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:6661
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6661/1/MPRA_paper_6661.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Oertmann* & Christel Rendu & Heinz Zimmermann, 2000. "Interest Rate Risk of European Financial Corporations," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 6(4), pages 459-478, December.
    2. Bartram, Sohnke M. & Karolyi, G. Andrew, 2006. "The impact of the introduction of the Euro on foreign exchange rate risk exposures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 519-549, October.
    3. Bessembinder, Hendrik, 1991. "Forward Contracts and Firm Value: Investment Incentive and Contracting Effects," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(4), pages 519-532, December.
    4. Hodder, James E., 1982. "Exposure to exchange-rate movements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3-4), pages 375-386, November.
    5. Mitchell A. Petersen & S. Ramu Thiagarajan, 2000. "Risk Measurement and Hedging: With and Without Derivatives," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 29(4), Winter.
    6. Arturo Bris & Yrjö Koskinen & Mattias Nilsson, 2009. "The Euro and Corporate Valuations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(8), pages 3171-3209, August.
    7. Flannery, Mark J & James, Christopher M, 1984. "The Effect of Interest Rate Changes on the Common Stock Returns of Financial Institutions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1141-1153, September.
    8. Prasad, Anita Mehra & Rajan, Murli, 1995. "The role of exchange and interest risk in equity valuation: A comparative study of international stock markets," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 457-472, December.
    9. Jongmoo Jay Choi & Anita Mehra Prasad, 1995. "Exchange Risk Sensitivity and Its Determinants: A Firm and Industry Analysis of U.S. Multinationals," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 24(3), Fall.
    10. Lars Oxelheim & Clas Wihlborg, 2003. "Recognizing Macroeconomic Fluctuations In Value Based Management," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 15(4), pages 104-110, September.
    11. Jorion, Philippe, 1991. "The Pricing of Exchange Rate Risk in the Stock Market," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 363-376, September.
    12. Bartram, Sohnke M., 2004. "Linear and nonlinear foreign exchange rate exposures of German nonfinancial corporations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 673-699, June.
    13. Sweeney, Richard J & Warga, Arthur D, 1986. "The Pricing of Interest-Rate Risk: Evidence from the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(2), pages 393-410, June.
    14. Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, 2001. "The Impact of EMU on European Financial Markets," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 62(2), pages 83-95.
    15. Chow, Edward H. & Chen, Hung-Ling, 1998. "The determinants of foreign exchange rate exposure: Evidence on Japanese firms1," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 153-174, May.
    16. Bartram, Sohnke M. & Dufey, Gunter & Frenkel, Michael R., 2005. "A primer on the exposure of non-financial corporations to foreign exchange rate risk," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(4-5), pages 394-413, October.
    17. Sung C. Bae, 1990. "Interest Rate Changes And Common Stock Returns Of Financial Institutions: Revisited," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 13(1), pages 71-79, March.
    18. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    19. Griffin, John M & Stulz, Rene M, 2001. "International Competition and Exchange Rate Shocks: A Cross-Country Industry Analysis of Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 215-241.
    20. Allayannis, George & Ofek, Eli, 2001. "Exchange rate exposure, hedging, and the use of foreign currency derivatives," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 273-296, April.
    21. Jongmoo Choi & Elyas Elyasiani, 1997. "Derivative Exposure and the Interest Rate and Exchange Rate Risks of U.S. Banks," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 12(2), pages 267-286, October.
    22. Brown, Gregory W., 2001. "Managing foreign exchange risk with derivatives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 401-448, May.
    23. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Brown, Gregory W. & Minton, Bernadette A., 2010. "Resolving the exposure puzzle: The many facets of exchange rate exposure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 148-173, February.
    24. Fatemi, Ali M. & Tavakkol, Amir & Dukas, Stephen P., 1996. "Foreign exchange exposure and the pricing of exchange rate risk," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 169-189.
    25. Choi, Jongmoo Jay & Elyasiani, Elyas & Kopecky, Kenneth J., 1992. "The sensitivity of bank stock returns to market, interest and exchange rate risks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 983-1004, September.
    26. Williamson, Rohan, 2001. "Exchange rate exposure and competition: evidence from the automotive industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 441-475, March.
    27. Bartov, Eli & Bodnar, Gordon M, 1994. "Firm Valuation, Earnings Expectations, and the Exchange-Rate Exposure Effect," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1755-1785, December.
    28. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:2:p:733-753 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Allayannis, George & Ihrig, Jane, 2001. "Exposure and Markups," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 805-835.
    30. Koutmos, Gregory & Martin, Anna D., 2003. "Asymmetric exchange rate exposure: theory and evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 365-383, June.
    31. Shapiro, Alan C, 1975. "Exchange Rate Changes, Inflation, and the Value of the Multinational Corporation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 30(2), pages 485-502, May.
    32. Lars Oxelheim & Clas Wihlborg, 1995. "Measuring macroeconomic exposure: The case of Volvo Cars," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 1(3), pages 241-263, November.
    33. Gordon M. Bodnar & M.H. Franco Wong, 2003. "Estimating Exchange Rate Exposures: Issues in Model Structure," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 32(1), Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Bodnar, Gordon, 2005. "The Exchange Rate Exposure Puzzle," MPRA Paper 6482, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Muller, Aline & Verschoor, Willem F.C., 2006. "Foreign exchange risk exposure: Survey and suggestions," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 385-410, October.
    3. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Bartram, Sohnke M., 2007. "Corporate cash flow and stock price exposures to foreign exchange rate risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 981-994, December.
    5. Bartram, Sohnke M. & Karolyi, G. Andrew, 2006. "The impact of the introduction of the Euro on foreign exchange rate risk exposures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 519-549, October.
    6. Aysun, Uluc & Guldi, Melanie, 2011. "Exchange rate exposure: A nonparametric approach," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 321-337.
    7. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Bodnar, Gordon M., 2012. "Crossing the lines: The conditional relation between exchange rate exposure and stock returns in emerging and developed markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 766-792.
    8. Sohnke M. Bartram, 2005. "The Impact of Commodity Price Risk on Firm Value - An Empirical Analysis of Corporate Commodity Price Exposures," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 9(3-4), pages 161-187, September.
    9. Bredin, Don & Hyde, Stuart, 2011. "Investigating sources of unanticipated exposure in industry stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 1128-1142, May.
    10. Chou, De-Wai & Lin, Lin & Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lin, Chun Heng, 2017. "A revisit to economic exposure of U.S. multinational corporations," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 273-287.
    11. Belghitar, Yacine & Clark, Ephraim & Mefteh, Salma, 2013. "Foreign currency derivative use and shareholder value," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 283-293.
    12. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Brown, Gregory W. & Minton, Bernadette A., 2010. "Resolving the exposure puzzle: The many facets of exchange rate exposure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 148-173, February.
    13. Belghitar, Yacine & Clark, Ephraim & Dropsy, Vincent & Mefteh-Wali, Salma, 2021. "The effect of exchange rate fluctuations on the performance of small and medium sized enterprises: Implications for Brexit," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 399-410.
    14. Muller, Aline & Verschoor, Willem F.C., 2006. "Asymmetric foreign exchange risk exposure: Evidence from U.S. multinational firms," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 495-518, October.
    15. Lee, Seul Ki & Jang, SooCheong (Shawn), 2011. "Foreign exchange exposure of US tourism-related firms," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 934-948.
    16. Krapl, Alain A., 2020. "The time-varying diversifiability of corporate foreign exchange exposure," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Young Sang Kim & Junyoup Lee & Ha-Chin Yi, 2021. "Is Foreign Exchange Risk Priced in Bank Loan Spreads?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1061-1092, October.
    18. Doidge, Craig & Griffin, John & Williamson, Rohan, 2006. "Measuring the economic importance of exchange rate exposure," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 550-576, October.
    19. He, Qing & Liu, Junyi & Zhang, Ce, 2021. "Exchange rate exposure and its determinants in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    20. Asif, Raheel & Frömmel, Michael, 2022. "Exchange rate exposure for exporting and domestic firms in central and Eastern Europe," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign exchange rates; exposure; risk management; cash flow; derivatives; corporate finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:6661. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.