derek abdinor

We are all analysts. We have all the information at our disposal and we will marry that to our experiences and opinions. We don’t have faith in the established financial, political, consumer and even sporting analys systems because they’ve proven fallible. Which is ok, but not when you’re taking a fee.

We’re in a world where:

1. There is general public mistrust of Big Bailed Business – in a world where information is a click away, citizens can see how companies are faring and paying themselves
2. Social media is a broadly accepted media channel. Pastor bloggers, mommy networks, Republican tweeters have skyrocketed in growth, and online has become flooded with “Hire me! I’m a social media and SEO Expert!”.
3. We have a stake in the tools that we use. Open Source software allows for tinkering, adapting and contribution. Users feel they can make their own software better, and therefore they can pass criticism on it.
4. Political analysis is quite detailed, but, like sports analysis, if you slap a 24-7 news channel on anything you can change your tune under the glare of the klieg lamps. Spotlights create more 360 degrees of shadow.

XBRLSpy: XBRL: An attempt to empower amateur analysts?
Dianne takes the view that the XBRL ruling in the US may mean many things, but it was not created to empower amateur analysts. That may be a by-product, but the millions of dollars pumped into XBRL had more upstream application.

Monkchips: Software ecosystems and convergence
James is an industry analyst for IT issues and Environmental issues – therefore you get a multisided take on both. Redmonk use the web natively, and are therefore specialists across a broad spectrum (no sic).

IR Web Report: Time to open up your earnings calls to bloggers
Dominic points out that Barack Obama called on a blogger for questions in his briefing. Research has also shown that blogs have become influential, and in many case, are as good a source for stock picking as the traditional sources. Companies should open up their calls to influential bloggers.

Re:The Auditors: Who Guards the Guardians?
Francine covers the big four accounting firms, and doesn’t let them get away with anything. Extremely influential. 

Alacra: A list of analysts
This list is of analysts in many sectors – some are formal analysts from firms (Gartner, Forrester, Redmonk) and others more informal.  

Remember desktop publishing? We don’t call ourselves Publishers. 

Blogging? Some call themselves Bloggers, but it implies “thinker and commentator” rather than a person who simply posts. Very like a poet.

This meme came about a week after finding some serendipitous links, usually via Twitter. I’m calling it to become big – especially as it is foreseen that people are going to get very pissed off this year.

Ok, the heading is misleading and would constitute baiting if I cared enough.

Found via Dianne Mueller and sure to become an internet meme. Explaining an accounting process need not be dry when you see these cartoons (click on the image). Sure to give the Plain English versions a run for their money.

From JICPA, the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

On a related topic, the discussion is around Twitter replacing RSS as a news feed of choice for online media types. I dramatically cut my RSS reading time and use Twitter because the idea is germinated on Twitter before it becomes a post – So Dianne tweeted about this, and then did her post.

Apart from the fact that ou can pull RSS into Twitter,  expecting users to congregate around a news reader to passively consume media is actually, despite RSS and other add-ons, a very Web 1.0 concept. We ought to know better.

The King II Code of Corporate Governance, which  recommends good practices for listed entities in South Africa, has always been in favour of companies having non-executive representation on the boards as well as the committees of listed companies. The reasoning behind these recommendation went as follows:

• non-executives are relatively impartial
• they bring different expertise and strategic input, being seperate from the operational running of the company
• they should be in the majority on the remuneration and audit committees in order to represent shareholder interests 

PWC brought out the Non-Executive Directors Best Practices and Fees Report which was of far more pertinence in 2009 than in any other time.  Amid bailouts in developed countries and exorbitant remuneration, non-executives are either being looked to highlight problems or to shape up their own accountability.  That aside, in this country a professional non-executive director is a full-time career.

As an afterthought, why do boards get ‘remunerated’ and ‘compensated’ for their time, whilst workers get ‘wages’ or a ‘salary’?

Last week the SEC formally published the XBRL mandate. While they released it in mid-December 2008, this was total ratification. Sound weird? Think of it just as  Barack Obama re-taking the oath of office after some minor fluffs

Of more interest to me is the ruling for non-US companies listed on the US markets. They file to the SEC in US GAAP, although many of them undoubtably are reporting in their countries in IFRS. The US will have to start reporting in IFRS in a few years, and therefore are open to foreing filers filing in IFRS XBRL down the line.

There seems to be confusion around this matter, so to highlight selected parts of the formal rule:
 

1. we believe that the updated IFRS list of tags will be sufficiently advanced to require that foreign private issuers that prepare their financial statements in accordance with IFRS as issued by the IASB provide their financial statements in interactive data format under the phase-in schedule we are adopting 
2. We also encourage foreign private issuers that prepare their financial statements in accordance with IFRS as issued by the IASB to provide financial information in interactive data format once EDGAR will accept such filings. (the footnote [94] to that says: Pursuant to the EDGAR Filer Manual, we will notify filers of the ability to file in IFRS on our Web site.)
3. Foreign Private Issuers with Financial Statements Prepared in Accordance with IFRS as Issued By the IASB will have to submit reports on Form 20-F or Form 40-F for fiscal periods ending on or after June 15, 2011

To summarise, from conversations with the SEC, they’re looking at possibly accepting IFRS (the official IASB version) in the third year (2011). Filing in IFRS to EDGAR is likely to happen before that, but as we know, EDGAR will probably not last long after June 2012.