Given all this, how can you check for accounting risk in the stocks you own?
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Type in a ticker symbol at riskgrades.com and you'll soon see grades for a firm's market, credit, governance and accounting risk.
During the past four rated Quarters, the GMI Ratings Accounting Risk Score for the company has fallen precipitously from 60, on a scale of 100, to 5.
Regulations supporting effective disclosure, as well as improved audit, accounting and risk-rating standards, should be preferred to restrictive regulatory controls that block innovation and growth.
Some may argue that the risk premium these banks are charging is too high, even accounting for the risk, but what are the chances they will suddenly see the light after this regulation is passed, and drop rates across the board?
The appropriate asset allocation should be tailored to your personal financial situation, accounting for your risk tolerance, time horizon, expected withdrawals, and legacy wishes, among other factors.
And the great majority of investment advisers claim they base decisions on this theory, which falls short when it comes to accounting for the risk of borrowed money.
Every three months it assigns each company an accounting and governance risk score, or AGR, based on proprietary modeling designed to identify practices that historically have had a high correlation with increasing shareholder risk.
The list of culprits for the woes afflicting banks includes bankers' pay, credit ratings, ill-prepared boards, sleepy supervisors, accounting regimes, flawed risk models and Alan Greenspan.
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Beyond validating the inclusion of HP on our risk list, the announcement provided the latest illustration of the importance of forensic accounting in the analysis of issuer risk.
The bank levy, in particular, will drive banking activity overseas, and banks will avoid most risk adjustments through accounting sleights-of-hand.
International travel is among the most common hepatitis A risk factors, accounting for 15% of U.S. cases in 2005, a CDC study found.
The latest fight, with hints of accounting shenanigans, poses the risk of a bankruptcy filing by spring if Joe can't ward off banks and bondholders.
But there is no doubt that the summit's action plan includes a long list of financial sector dimensions to be addressed, including: accounting standards, hedge funds, risk disclosures, financial sector assessments, credit rating agencies, risk-management and stress-testing models, international standard setters, sanctions for misconduct, reporting to supervisors in different countries, and more.
Reuters, July 27, 2011: In a 106-page decision, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said the plaintiffs, which include retirement and pension funds around the world, companies and individuals, sufficiently alleged that Lehman materially misled them about its accounting and its ability to manage risk ahead of its September 15, 2008, bankruptcy.
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But in the process of buying the loans and packaging them up, investment banks retain some risk of loss, including accounting items like loans held for sale, loans held for investment, retained interests in the securitizations themselves, and so-called warehouse loans that keep the origination engines at the small mortgage lenders humming.
None of this is to gloss over the fact that international investing does carry risk of currency fluctuation, questionable accounting practices (which Americans are by no means immune to at home, either) and, for some countries, political instability.
There is a risk that the old patchwork of national accounting rules will be replaced not by a pan-European regime but by another mishmash.
It is also a potent risk factor for ischemic stroke, increasing the risk of stroke 5-fold and accounting for approximately 15% of all strokes nationally.
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Even when accounting for other related factors such as demographics and risk-taking behaviors, the correlation between televised sexual content and teen pregnancy persisted, she said.
Incurring billions of losses on bonds once thought to be among the safest bets in the market and recorded as risk-free in banks' balance sheets under European accounting rules would be traumatic.
Enforcement will be the real challenge, assuming that all the cumbersome legislation goes forward on financial conglomerates, pensions, new capital-adequacy rules, risk capital for small businesses, clearing and settlement, accounting standards and insolvency rules.
In addition, customers for professionals services, including Audit Committees, have no comprehensive or effective way of vetting accounting firm partners assigned to the audit, tax, and key risk and compliance activities at their companies.
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Some of these risks, according to Upendra Choudhary, senior vice president of credit services at Amba Research, include trading risk (some of these markets are thinly traded and have low liquidity), political risk and transparency risk (some areas have no or at least confusing accounting standards).
The quirks of the different accounting rules turn on its head the idea that investment banks are bigger risk takers than commercial banks--hence riskier investments.
"These banks are big and you can argue that these kinds of settlements have some mitigating effect on risk-taking, " says Gary Biddle, professor of accounting at the University of Hong Kong.
By taking the low-risk, high-return leap to use social tools, accounting and finance can become a seamless part of the fabric of the company and get the elusive respect and inclusion they have so long deserved.
In the name of "fairness, " preventing future Enrons, and increased oversight, Congress, the SEC and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have piled burdens onto the economy that put entrepreneurship at risk.
Immediately after the Sarbanes-Oxley law was passed, audit firms were unwilling to risk scrutiny by the PCAOB and potential litigation under Sarbanes-Oxley over questionable accounting treatments or ones they were possibly coerced into agreeing to or ignoring for the sake of the relationship.
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How can a rogue trader and risky transactions survive risk management systems absolutely required by Dodd-Frank, existing law, compliance, regulation and accounting standards?
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