Estimating comovement measures for a large set of bilateral foreign exchange (FX) rates, I explore the relation between firm-level FX exposure and its time-varying diversifiability. For a sample of U.S. firms, the magnitude of FX exposure appears to increase during periods of low currency risk diversifiability. Additional results suggest that the introduction of the euro exacerbated the effect of diversifiability on developed market currency exposure. Moreover, the low diversifiability of emerging market currencies seems to have a stronger effect on FX exposure than the low diversifiability of developed market currencies.

This study analyzes foreign exchange (FX) cash flow and equity exposures of a sample of U.S. multinational firms. Focusing on asymmetry in FX cash flow exposures to direction and magnitude of FX shocks, the study finds that asymmetry is pervasive in several alternative measures of FX cash flow exposure. Also, after decomposing FX equity exposures into discount rate and cash flow components, the study documents significant asymmetries in FX discount rate exposures. The latter finding implies that market-related factors in addition to cash flow–based arguments need to be considered when further exploring FX equity exposure. This study also highlights the importance of model specification: models with asymmetric specifications detect more firms with significant FX exposures.