We develop a novel method to dynamically hedge foreign exchange exposure in international equity and bond portfolios. The method exploits the time-series predictability of currency returns, which we show emerges from exploiting a forecastable component in global factor returns. The hedging strategy outperforms leading alternative approaches to currency hedging across a large set of performance metrics. Moreover, we find that exploiting currency return predictability via an independent currency portfolio delivers a high risk-adjusted return and provides superior diversification gains to global equity and bond investors relative to currency carry, value, and momentum investment strategies.

We find a strong link between currency excess returns and the relative strength of the business cycle. Buying currencies of strong economies and selling currencies of weak economies generates high returns both in the cross-section and time series of countries. These returns stem primarily from spot exchange rate predictability, are uncorrelated with common currency investment strategies, and cannot be understood using traditional currency risk factors in either unconditional or conditional asset pricing tests. We also show that a business cycle factor implied by our results is priced in a broad currency cross section.