The Impact of Hedging on Stock Returns and Firm Value: New Evidence from Canadian Oil and Gas Companies Chang Dan, Hong Gu and Kuan Xu∗ ∗Chang Dan, Financial Analyst, Chang Jiang Securities, Wuhan, China. Hong Gu, Associate Pro- fessor of Statistics, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Kuan Xu, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Correspondence: Kuan Xu, Department of Economics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3J5. E-mail:
[email protected]. We thank Shamsud Chowdhury, Iraj Fooladi, Greg Hebb, Yanbo Jin, Barry Lesser, Maria Pacurar, John Rumsey, Oumar Sy and participants of the School of Business and the Department of Economics Seminars at Dalhousie University for their helpful comments on the earlier draft of this paper. Remaining errors are, of course, the responsibility of authors. 1 The Impact of Hedging on Stock Returns and Firm Value: New Evidence from Canadian Oil and Gas Companies Abstract In this paper we analyze (a) the impact of hedging activities on the relationships between oil and gas prices/reserves and stock returns and (b) the role of hedging on firm value among large Canadian oil and gas companies. Differing from the existing literature this research attempts to explore possible nonlinear impact of hedging activities, which may not be fully revealed in the traditional linear framework. By using generalized additive models, we find that factors that affect stock returns and firm value are indeed nonlinear. The large Canadian oil and gas firms are able to hedge against downside risk induced by unfavorable oil and gas price changes.