It's no coincidence that when mark-to-market accounting was modified this spring the equity markets, led by financial companies, took off like rockets from their lows.

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Your five-year return-on-equity figure for HSBC is based on U.K. accounting standards, which are not comparable to the U.S. accounting standards used by Citigroup.

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For instance, the recent guideline on fair-value accounting, which decrees that companies must show equity holdings at their market value, also contains a provision that allows them to avoid writing down shares if they think that they will soon recover in value.

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