FiREapps says raging currency wars causing companies to miss their EPS targets, lose billions.
US-based multinational corporations are feeling the effects of competitive devaluation on nearly every continent causing at billions in revenue losses, according to the latest corporate earnings currency impact research by FX exposure management company FiREapps.
“Currency battles that began in Asia have incited battles in Latin America, as the ripples from competitive devaluation in the world’s third-largest economy spread across the ocean,” FiREapps said in its research report. “In the first quarter we saw significant negative impacts from the yen, and from a number of Latin American currencies as well. And midcap companies – those with revenue between $500 million and $2 billion – were hard-hit as well, most significantly by the yen.”
While the total negative top line impact was at least $3.67 billion, perhaps more striking has been the impact on companies’ earnings per share – 3 cents on average, FiREapps said. “In an environment in which treasurers have performance objectives of no more than 1-cent EPS impact, 3 cents is large and material.”
Furthermore, FiREapps suggested that the total impact is likely underestimated. There are two reasons for this: first, it is almost certain that companies that faced currency headwinds did not specifically mention them in their reports. Second, of the companies that did report currency effects, only 46 percent actually quantified them.
To measure the impact of currency on corporations, FiREapps analyzed the earnings calls of a subset of the Fortune 2000 companies that have at least 15 percent or more international revenues in at least two currencies. Here are some of the highlights:
- 213 out of 800 U.S. MNCs reported a negative revenue impact from currency fluctuations. Of those, 97 companies quantified the impact.
- In aggregate the quantified negative impact was $3.67 billion – an average headwind of 1.11 percent. The average currency-driven impact on EPS was $0.03.
- Currency impacts continue to arise from all corners; devaluation of the Japanese yen fueled competitive devaluation in Latin America and elsewhere around the world.