While more comprehensive than previous analyses,
McBrady and Schill’s analysis of uncovered currency
bargains largely confirms previous anecdotal findings.
On the other hand, their truly novel finding is that the
borrowers in their sample also appear to prefer issuing
bonds in those currencies, whose interest rates remain
low even after hedging currency risk with currency
swaps.
This suggests that bond issuers do not believe
that the CIP holds at the longer maturities relevant to
their borrowing decisions.
Instead, they opportunistically
issue a greater share of bonds in those currencies
that offer the greatest ‘covered currency bargains’ as
measured by the deviations from the CIP identified in
Eq. (15.5). Across the full sample of currencies, currency
shares increase by an average of 7.5% in response to a
10 bps increase in covered interest cost savings.
By varying
their issuance in this manner, bond issuers collectively
lower their borrowing costs by between 4 and
18 bps in comparison to a naı¨ve alternative strategy in
which they simply issue the average amount issued in
each currency over the entire sample period in each year.
While these borrowing cost savings might seem modest
on the surface, they are achieved without incurring currency
risk.
They also translate into significant annual interest
cost savings given the large quantity of FC bonds
that are issued.
Savings of this magnitude are also consistent
with the type of short-term deviations from the
CIP that would be expected in well-functioning markets.
Interestingly, covered interest cost savings also appear to
peak in event time in the period immediately preceding
bond issuance and to decline steadily thereafter.
This evidence
suggests that the issuers that McBrady and Schill
(2007) consider either perfectly ‘time’ their FC bond issues
perfectly or that their FC bond offerings and currency
swap transactions help drive foreign bond yields
and currency swap rates toward parity over time.