The use of foreign currency derivatives and the market value of brazilian companies listed at the Bovespa stock exchange

This paper examines the impact of using foreign currency derivatives on the market value of firms in a sample of the 48 most liquid non-financial companies listed at the "Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo" (São Paulo Stock Exchange) from 1999 to 2007. Based on the work of Allayanis and Weston (2001) and Rossi (2008), three measures of the Tobins' Q ratio were used as an approximation of a firm's value. The model is regressed using three methodologies: pooled OLS, fixed effect model and random walk model. Furthermore, the reverse causality and the direct causality between the use of foreign currency derivatives and the market value of firms are tested. The empirical results suggest that there is no clear evidence that the use of foreign currency derivatives is associated with a firm's market value. Concerning the pooled OLS regressions, the hypothesis that the use of foreign currency derivatives increases the market value of firms was accepted, but was statistically not significant. However, in the fixed effects and random walk regressions, we found negative but statistically significant results. Finally, evidence was found that the companies that start using foreign currency derivatives as well as those that stop using it, experience a higher market value.