What Keeps The SEC Busy - 2013 The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants held its annual “Current SEC & PCAOB Developments Conference” in Washington, DC in the first week of December. Speakers were on hand from all of the …
Archive | 2012 Reports
2012 Reports
Volume 21, No. 13
Unexplored Obligations: Other Postretirement Benefits, Pt. 2: In our previous report, the weirdly contradictory income statement reporting for other postretirement benefits was reviewed. While firms report declining significance of these costs to their overall performance - in some cases, even …
Volume 21, No. 12
Unexplored Obligations: Other Postretirement Benefits: Defined benefit pension plans take center stage in the pantheon of investors’ fears when it comes to worrying about liquidity effects or earnings distortions. Yet they rarely consider the cash demands and earnings distortions resulting …
Volume 21, No. 11
Other Comprehensive Income: FASB Adds A Touch Of (Re) Class: At this time last year, accounting observers were hopeful that the FASB and the IASB would reach a state of convergence in their accounting standards. A seemingly easy target: their …
Volume 21, No. 10
Fair Value Reporting: Surveying Financial Institutions At 1Q2012: Disclosures of fair values of financial instruments don’t make the front page of quarterly earnings releases. In fact, they don’t even make the back page. Yet they tell a story about asset …
Volume 21, No. 9
SEC's Last Say On IFRS Work Plan: They're Not Saying: For the last five years, the SEC has toiled away on the issue of whether or not the United States is ready for the widespread use of International Financial Reporting …
Volume 21, No. 8
S&P 500 Executive Pay: The Bread Keeps Rising: Annual reports theoretically contain the information needed for investors to make economically rational decisions about investment - assuming they’re reading the financial statements, and that they’re rational. Yet annual reports exclude one …
Volume 21, No. 7
State Of The Pension Promise: The S&P 500 in 2011: Just like the weather: everybody talks about pensions, but nobody does anything about them. In this report, we’ll take a look at the critical points to inspect in pension plans …
Volume 21, No. 6
Fair Value Reporting: A 4Q2011 Financial Institutions Survey: The quarterly disclosure about the fair values of financial instruments have been available for investors’ use for several years. When observed in the aggregate, they provide a market opinion on the realizability …
Volume 21, No. 5
Growing, Glowing Earnings: S&P 500's 2011 Untaxed Income: When can earnings be too good? When they’re growing, but glowing like they’re radioactive - and shareholders can’t get their hands on them. That’s what happens when firms "indefinitely reinvest" their earnings …