Accounting and Finance News
FAF Updates FASB and GASB Codification Print Editions
Accounting Today
The Financial Accounting Foundation has published updated print editions of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s FASB Accounting Standards Codification and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s Codification of Governmental Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards. The FASB Codification provides an authoritative source of U.S. GAAP for public and private companies and not-for-profit organizations.
Dividends Aren’t the Answer. They’re the Problem
Wall Street Journal
The humble dividend is reclaiming its rightful place as the arbiter of stock-market value. In three of the four biggest developed markets, shares offer a higher yield than the longest-dated government bond, and in the fourth—the U.S.—the dividend yield beats even a 20-year bond. To investors desperate for income, the argument for buying equities is, well, duh.
SEC Looking More Closely at XBRL Filings
Accounting Today
Now that public companies are required to use Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, in their financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC is trying to make sure the data is appropriate and not hiding accounting gimmicks. Lou Rohman, vice president of XBRL services at Merrill Corporation, a member of XBRL US’s Data Quality Committee, recommends that financial statement preparers take a closer look at the guidance being issued by his committee.
Accounting News Roundup: PwC Drones and DRS on the CPA Exam | 05.09.16
Going Concern
PwC drones. You might be thinking that this is referring to the human-shaped things walking around your office, however, this article is referring to a different type of PwC drone: PwC, the professional services firm, is joining the ranks of companies turning to drones and other new technologies to upgrade their business models.
Wall Street Cops to Hedge Funds: Treat Investors Better
Wall Street Journal
Regulators are ramping up a new approach in policing the $3 trillion hedge-fund industry, focusing on how fairly managers treat their investors. The tack has emerged in a series of recent investigations into the way hedge funds value their thinly traded holdings and how they respond when investors ask for their money back.
Hedge Funds Faced Choppy Waters in 2015, but Chiefs Cashed In
New York Times
JPMorgan Chase paid its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, $27 million in 2015. In another Wall Street universe, the hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin made $1.7 billion over the same year. Even as regulators push to rein in compensation at Wall Street banks, top hedge fund managers earn more than 50 times what the top executives at banks are paid.
Analysis: Negative Rates Are Better at QE Than QE
Wall Street Journal
When it comes to unconventional monetary policy, negative rates may be making more of a splash than quantitative easing. Just not the way economists would expect them to. Data from Commerzbank AG suggest that large-scale bond purchases by central banks—known as quantitative easing or QE—have hit the limits of their effectiveness.