Accounting and Financial News Stories

CPA.com, Confirmation.com Launch RIVIO Clearinghouse
Accounting Today
CPA.com and Confirmation.com have launched RIVIO Clearinghouse, a secure, cloud-based platform for the exchange of CPA source-validated financial documents. RIVIO—an acronym for Repository of Intelligent Validated Inputs and Outputs—was built for private companies, which lack a central repository for financial information like the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system for public companies.

Investors Profiting From U.S. Economic Data Before Release, ECB Study Says
Wall Street Journal
Researchers for the European Central Bank said they have uncovered strong evidence that investors are making tens of millions of dollars a year by trading on U.S. economic data before it is officially released. In a study published on Monday, the researchers warned that details of many macroeconomic announcements were “known by some market participants in advance.”

What The World Needs Now: Sustainability Accounting Standards
Forbes
Markets depend on standards. Weights and measures were some of the first examples. Standards make it possible for companies to do business with each other and for consumers to buy products that will meet their expectations. The Internet, one of the biggest markets in the world, depends on standards. When standards don’t exist, markets don’t develop to their full potential.

The Spirit of Accounting
Accounting Today
This column is prompted by the fact that voting is now underway on the American Institute of CPAs’ proposed de facto merger with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. Our January column (“Transparency, integrity, prophecy and the AICPA merger,”) accurately predicted that the balloting would occur right after busy season, anticipating that the institute’s elite would expect many members to be too burned out to analyze the issue or vote.

IRS Grants Relief From New 1098-T Reporting Mandate
National Association of College and University Business Officers
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced that it will not penalize institutions for reporting the aggregate amount billed for qualified tuition and related expenses (Box 2) on 2016 Form 1098-T instead of the aggregate amount of payments received (Box 1) as required by the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (PATH Act), enacted late last year.

Big Investors Cast a Wary Eye on Emerging Markets
Wall Street Journal
Emerging-market investments have been on a tear for much of 2016, but investors still should be wary, market sages said Monday at the Milken Institute’s 2016 global conference. Mohamed El-Erian said the Chinese government “went too far” encouraging participation in its stock market, much as the U.S. emphasized home ownership last decade, a misstep he said helped lead to the 2008 financial crisis.

Wall St. Ends Higher After a Week of Declines
New York Times
Stock indexes moved solidly higher on Monday, recovering some of the steep declines of last week. Recently battered technology stocks like Amazon.com and Microsoft posted gains, helping to end a seven-day losing streak in the Nasdaq composite index. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index added 16.13 points, or 0.8 percent, to 2,081.43, and the Nasdaq rose 42.24 points, or 0.9 percent, to 4,817.59. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 117.52 points, or 0.7 percent, to 17,891.16.

5 Steps to Protect Small Business Data
CPA Practice Advisor
Data anxiety among small business owners results from not having adequate resources to properly manage information security. While the threat of an information security breach is an increasingly widespread problem for businesses of all sizes, it is especially prevalent for small businesses. A Ponemon Institute survey found that 55 percent of small businesses have had at least one data breach and 53% of those businesses had multiple breaches.

Small Businesses Feeling More Pessimistic
Accounting Today
Small business sentiment dropped in the first half of the year, with small business owners citing concerns about the economy, regulation and the presidential election, according to a new survey.  Capital One’s latest Spark Business Barometer, an ongoing national study of small businesses tracking financial conditions, economic perceptions, hiring plans and other indicators of small business growth, revealed a nine point drop in the percentage of business owners who see conditions as “good” or “excellent” compared to one year ago.

He’s Bitcoin’s Creator, He Says, but Skeptics Pounce on His Claim
New York Times
An Australian entrepreneur claimed on Monday to be the creator of the online currency Bitcoin. Within hours, the skepticism started. Whether the truth is ultimately uncovered, the hunt for the founder’s identity is part of the new reality of the online age. A vast array of new tools and technologies make it ever easier to hide in the vast digital ocean that is the Internet — and all the more difficult to put a face to every screen name.

Ending America’s Slow-Growth Tailspin
Wall Street Journal
Sclerotic growth is America’s overriding economic problem. From 1950 to 2000, the U.S. economy grew at an average rate of 3.5% annually. Since 2000, it has grown at half that rate—1.76%. Even in the years since the bottom of the great recession in 2009, which should have been a time of fast catch-up growth, the economy has only grown at 2%. Last week’s 0.5% GDP report is merely the latest Groundhog Day repetition of dashed hopes.

The Management Accounting Profession Will Double by 2024 - Are We Prepared?
Accounting Today
As a management accountant and a CEO, I know first-hand the field continues to grow and expand. I was happy to learn that the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects management accountants and auditors to experience double-digit growth through 2024. Despite this growth, a troubling pattern has emerged in the profession. Students at many U.S. colleges and universities are largely preparing for entry-level audit and compliance work, but not for long-term careers in our rapidly growing field.

Financial Engineering Shows Its Downside
Wall Street Journal
Valeant, SunEdison…the S&P 500? Financial engineering has built vast financial edifices, but all too often there is little of substance providing support. The latest Wall Street constructs to crumble are familiar names, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and SunEdison Inc. Both relied on financial engineering to satisfy shareholders desperate for two items scarce in today’s weak economy: growth, offered by Valeant, and income, supplied by SunEdison’s so-called yieldcos.