Blaine Lourd Profile - Executive Articles - Portfolio.com

What a great article! Inherently readable, a great story, and even ends up with a happy ending. I usually hate to give away the story, but in this case I will. It is the story of a stereotypical stock broker who sees the light and realizes that indexing is generally a better idea.Blaine Lourd Profile - Executive Articles - Portfolio.com: "As a group, professional money managers control more

An Airline Shrugs at Oil Prices - New York Times

An Airline Shrugs at Oil Prices - New York Times: "Southwest owns long-term contracts to buy most of its fuel through 2009 for what it would cost if oil were $51 a barrel. The value of those hedges soared as oil raced above $90 a barrel, and they are now worth more than $2 billion. Those gains will mostly be realized over the next two years. Other major airlines passed on buying all but the

Do International Financial Reporting Standards Live Up to Their Promise? - Knowledge@Wharton

Do International Financial Reporting Standards Live Up to Their Promise? - Knowledge@Wharton: "Under the lead of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), already more than 100 countries, most notably the European Union and many Asian economies, have either implemented International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or plan to do so. So far, the United States has been a holdout.

The Subprime Drama Continues, but for How Long? - Knowledge@Wharton

Wharton's Knowledge@wharton has a good discussion with Richard Herring on the continuing developments in the real estate and sub-prime lending markets.The Subprime Drama Continues, but for How Long? - Knowledge@Wharton: "Has the crisis run its course? Knowledge@Wharton asked that question and several more to Richard Herring, a professor of finance at Wharton and co-director of the Wharton

Private placements

Another financial instiitution that had had major writedowns gets a cash infusion.Bloomberg.com: Worldwide: "-- E*Trade Financial Corp., the U.S. discount broker grappling with mortgage losses, will get a $2.55 billion cash infusion from a group led by hedge-fund manager Citadel Investment Group LLC."This is on the heels of Citi getting $7.5 Billion from Abu Dhabi."Investors seem delighted that

SSRN-Do Buyouts (Still) Create Value? by Shourun Guo, Edith Hotchkiss, Weihong Song

I do not have time to really comment on this one, but I did find it very interesting. I'll try to add some to this later, but at least I can point it out and quote the abstract.SSRN-Do Buyouts (Still) Create Value? by Shourun Guo, Edith Hotchkiss, Weihong Song: "For a sample of 176 buyouts completed between 1990 and 2006, we show that these deals are somewhat more conservatively priced and lower

Fed to Inject $8 Billion to Lubricate Economy - New York Times

Fed to Inject $8 Billion to Lubricate Economy - New York Times:"Seeking to reassure banks amid the continuing credit crisis, the Federal Reserve said yesterday that it would provide $8 billion in funds to ease concerns about lending during the holiday season. The $8 billion — essentially a low-interest loan to the nation’s banks — will be issued Wednesday and repaid Jan. 10. The 43-day

BonaResponds "commercial"

My day job is a financeprofessor, but what most on campus know me for is my role in BonaResponds. In that light, you can call this an agency cost problem if you must, but here is an unpaid for advertisement... Help BonaResponds While Shopping! Ok, this is easy. All you have to do is click through this link and then shop at any of 100s of stores (Barnes and Noble,

I think someone has been spying on our Faculty meetings!

Somehow the Unknown professor has been spying on our faculty meetings. He has to have been. There is no way he could have had so many items EXACTLY correct! LOL... Hi is starting a faculty meeting Bingo--the games won't last long!

Seems like Bonuses won't suffer as much as most expected

Bloomberg.com: U.S.: "Securities firms typically use slightly less than 50 percent of their revenue to pay salaries, benefits and bonuses....Year-end bonuses usually account for about 60 percent of compensation. In the first nine months of 2007, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman and Bear Stearns told their shareholders that they set aside $52.4 billion for compensation, up 9 percent from

Congratulations to Robert Strong!

The University of Maine - News - November 16, 2007 - Carnegie Foundation Names UMaine's Strong 2007 Maine Professor of the Year: "Robert A. Strong, a University of Maine professor of finance, has been selected as the 2007 Maine Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE.)"A very good choice.

The Sums of All Parts: Redesigning Financials - Accounting - CFO.com

Look for changes in financial statements soon:The Sums of All Parts: Redesigning Financials - Accounting - CFO.com: " ...another large step towards the most dramatic overhaul of financialstatements in decades, the Financial Accounting Standards Board Wednesday laidout a series of subtotal figures that companies would be required to include ontheir balance sheets, income statements and cash flow

Fannie Mae's credit losses still in doubt - Nov. 16, 2007

Well that didn't take long. The day after I speculated with zero evidence of the nightmare that would exist if one of the big agencies got into trouble, Fortune had the same idea but they backed it up with the troubling accounting game that Fannie Mae apparently was playing:As usual when you try to hide something on investors, they tend to get annoyed and more distrustful. The result? A

Steven Levitt Lecture

.flickr-photo { }.flickr-frame { float: right; text-align: center; margin-left: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } at the Steven Levitt lecture,originally uploaded by FinanceProfessor. I took a small group to the Steven Levitt(of Freakonomics' fame )Lecture at UB this week. I will give you some highlights soon.Weird going to an academic lecture (

Interesting history lessons

Yeah this is probably sort of trivial, but I love history and finance so the combination of the two is too good to pass up. This is on the 1920s. It shows the how the stock market worked with specialists at posts and how the ticker tape was created--the video of order confirmations is fascinating and reminscient from my mental picture of Orwell's 1984), the risks of buying on margin, and the

Transactions costs, renting, and leasing

While leasing is a topic we won't cover in class to any detail until later in the semester, a friend called all excited about ZipCars today. ZipCars allows you to rent for periods as short as as an hour. In their words: "Zipcar is the closest thing to owning a car without the cost and headaches. It's also more convenient, cost-effective and more fun than renting."The call got me thinking: As

Make a difference

I know there are literally thousands of great causes out there. Take, BonaResponds for instance, which is always looking for donations (we are adopting a family in Mississippi and helping to rebuild their home which will cost about $20,000) so I am definitely not saying do one to the exclusion of others, but this one seems like quite a "win-win". I am giving it a try. Give one, get one: "

Illustrated Cash Flow For Dummies

Illustrated Cash Flow For Dummies: "Illustrated Cash Flow For Dummies"Pretty funny. A good visual lesson on your personal finance!

Google Options Make Masseuse a Multimillionaire - New York Times

Google Options Make Masseuse a Multimillionaire - New York Times:Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are each worth about $20 B each and the weatlth has not stopped there. A few look-ins: " Although no one keeps an official count of Google millionaires, it is estimated that 1,000 people each have more than $5 million worth of Google shares from stock grants and stock options.""“It isn’t

Mortgage Crisis Extends Its Reach - WSJ.com

Sometimes things change really quickly for instance, there are now calls to expand Government's role in the housing market. Huh? Only months ago the exact opposite was being considered!From the Wall Street Journal--Mortgage Crisis Extends Its Reach - WSJ.com: "The expanding government role isn't the result of initiatives from Washington. As investors have fled from housing exposure, lenders

Do you have a student managed investment fund?

From Edward Lawrence:"The University of Missouri - St. Louis is in the process of collecting data on all Student Managed Investment Funds in the world."If you have not filled out his survey and do have a fund, email him or Kerry Sallee. Edward C. Lawrence, Ph.D.Professor of Finance & Area CoordinatorCollege of BusinessOne University BoulevardUniversity of Missouri - St Louis

Real Estate, CDOs, Banks, and the Economy

The story began in June when trouble in the real estate market (which played out first as sub-prime borrowers could not make payments) began spilling over to the banking industry (Bear was the to acknowledge the damage as it took writedowns (and then made loans to) two of its hedge funds as their holdings of CDOs (a type of mortgage backed security) fell sharply. In recent weeks the problems

Corporate goverance making inroads in Nigeria!

In a story that shows the importance of capital markets and governance, the Central Bank of Nigeria is pushing for better corporate governance of banks. Remember that Nigeria wants to grow into one of the top 20 economies by 2020, this is a good start.allAfrica.com: Nigeria: No Bank Survives Without Good Corporate Governance -CBN (Page 1 of 1): "The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has restated

Science Journal - WSJ.com

Science Journal - WSJ.com: A look at the Puri and Robinson JFE article on optimism. "Optimists, the Duke finance scholars discovered, worked longer hours everyweek, expected to retire later in life, were less likely to smoke and, when theydivorced, were more likely to remarry. They also saved more, had more of theirwealth in liquid assets, invested more in individual stocks and paid

Index of Orlando FMA Papers

Index of Orlando Papers: A reader commented today that the FMA had taken down the program from last month's Meetings in Orlando. Fortunately they did leave the directory of papers online. Enjoy!

Fall 2007 FMA Online--

Fall 2007 FMA Online: ""Jay's Ritter's Keynote Address tackles the question of if there is a corporate governance premium for listing in the United States, with an insightful look at international competition for new listings of IPOs."At the FMA's in Orlando I was talking to a friend and our comments about Jay Ritter were almost identical: "He is a genius." Well here is your chance to watch his

A conversation with with the CEO of General Electric Jeffrey Immelt - Charlie Rose

A conversation with with the CEO of General Electric Jeffrey Immelt - Charlie Rose: "A conversation with with the CEO of General Electric Jeffrey Immelt"Immelt talks on risk and return, globalization, global warming, foreign exchange risks, the US dollar and trade deficit, the role of government, and much more. It is really good. We can debate if he is an expert on some of the things (say

No More Bench Strength - New York Times

The NY Times missed a great opportunity here. The article is good, but it could have been great. First the facts from the article.No More Bench Strength - New York Times: "Thirty years ago, companies rarely looked beyond their own executives to find new chiefs, said Kevin J. Murphy, a professor of finance at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. In the 1970s,

Study: Free beats fee for Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

I have to admit this is probably not strictly speaking finance, but it is REALLY interesting, so....First the background: Radiohead released their newest album free online. They merely asked people to donate. Well, the album was released and the tallies are coming in. And not overly surprisingly, people did not give all that much. Some highlights:Study: Free beats fee for Radiohead's 'In

A few other blogs that you might be interested in

Without boring the entire finance world, there are two other finance blogs that I help with. One is for just my finance classes, the other is for a our student-run investment portfolio class (called Students in Money Management or SIMM). Feel free to read either or both, they do have quite a few interesting posts.

Does short-term debt lead to more "earnings management"?

In another paper from the FMAs, Gupta and Fields look at whether more short term debt leads to more "earnings management."Does short-term debt lead to more "earnings management"?Short answer: YES.Longer answer:Intuitively the idea behind the paper is that if a firm has to go back to the capital markets, they do not want to do so when times are bad. Of course, sometimes times are bad. In those

CIBC analyst got death threats on Citigroup: report - Yahoo! News

It is well known that there have traditionally been many more buy recommendations than sell. This has been largely explained incentives both of the analyst (who does not want to lose the information that comes from better access to management) and from the brokerage firm (who does not want to lose potential investment banking business). Recent research (Kadan, Madureira, Wang, and Zach)

Google Reader -Jim's shared items

Google Reader -Jim's shared items: Google's Sharing feature is really cool. For what is worth here are articles that I liked and thought you might. It is updated regularly.

Britney Spends Big, Court Papers Reveal - washingtonpost.com

Britney Spends Big, Court Papers Reveal - washingtonpost.com: "Court papers released Thursday in Britney Spears' custody dispute with Kevin Federline show she spends lavishly on clothes and entertainment, and doesn't save or invest any of her roughly $737,000 monthly income....she spends zero on education, savings and investments and gives $500 a month in charitable contributions...." I have

Obesity Epidemic Among CEO Pay - Business on The Huffington Post

Eve Tahmincioglu: Obesity Epidemic Among CEO Pay - Business on The Huffington Post: "Stanley O'Neal who is leaving Merrill Lynch after giving it a big fat gift of a $8 billion dollar write-off thanks to risky investments. The board just can't help but feed this obesity epidemic. They're giving him $160 million plus in severance for his troubles as he heads for the door. At some point, the