Canadian Short-Term Interest Rates and the BAX Futures Market: Analysis of the Impact of Volatility on Hedging Activity and the Correlation of Returns between Markets

This paper analyses how Canadian financial firms manage short-term interest rate risk through the use of BAX futures contracts. The results show that the most effective hedging strategy is, on average, a static strategy based on linear regression that assumes constant variances, even though dynamic models allowing for time-varying variances are found to have superior explanatory power. The results also show a rise in the correlation of the returns to three-month bankers' acceptances and three-month treasury bills with the returns to BAX futures contracts during periods of increased money market volatility, suggesting that hedging activity should increase during market volatility.