2003 Reports
2003: Accounting Issues Review & Preview, Part II Accounting issues receded from investor memory in 2003 - but only slightly. Firms with weird futuristic names like Enron didn't dominate scandal-filled headlines; instead, the biggest accounting scandal headlines of 2003 …
2003: Accounting Issues Review & Preview, Part I The year's almost passed, and there haven't been many new accounting standards - at least in terms of sheer numbers. In terms of sheer anxiety on the part of preparers and …
Return On Equity Remixed: The S&P 500's Real Numbers Return on equity is an old standby of a performance yardstick for equity investors, and with good reason - it's simple, consistent and tells a story about performance in straightforward …
The FIN 46 Way To Plumper Balance Sheets Enron showed the world the power of an idea: if investors can't see it, they can't ask you about it, - the it being assets and debt. That company nearly perfected …
Pension Disclosure Patch: FASB's Service Pack 2 For Statement 87 Like a buggy version of Windows, Statement No. 87, Employers' Accounting for Pensions has driven its users batty for years. Waiting for the annual information to see how pension …
Pondering Pensions, 2002: The Shrinking Shmoo Of The S&P 500 In the classic comic strip Li'l Abner, shmoos were blobby, shapeless little critters that existed only to please mankind - even if it meant self-sacrifice, which was delicious bounty …
Liabilities Vs. Equity: SFAS No. 150 Tunes Financial Instruments The more tone-deaf among us can't recognize a trumpet from a trombone, or a snare drum from a base drum. A hearing aid wouldn't do these poor souls a bit …
Now Playing At A Company Near You: "The Sudden Standards" There's a kind-sounding term in the world of accounting standards: the grace period. It's the time between the issuance of a final standard and the date it must be …
The Pendulum Swings Again: 2002 Option Compensation The most hackneyed accounting subject in the financial press is stock option compensation and the limitless debate over the proper treatment for it. It's no wonder the topic became so over-exposed, though: …
Ignorance Is Not Bliss: Critical Accounting Policies In The S&P 100 Throughout the Roaring Nineties, analysts and investors grew increasingly fixated on one, maybe two measures of a company's efforts: for established companies, earnings per share higher than last …
