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Subject: Corporate Governance

Corporate governance is the set of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions affecting the way a corporation (or company) is directed, administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many stakeholders involved and the goals for which the corporation is governed. The principal stakeholders are the shareholders, management, and the board of directors. Other stakeholders include employees, customers, creditors, suppliers, regulators, and the community at large.
Corporate governance is a multi-faceted subject. An important theme of corporate governance is to ensure the accountability of certain individuals in an organization through mechanisms that try to reduce or eliminate the principal-agent problem. A related but separate thread of discussions focuses on the impact of a corporate governance system in economic efficiency, with a strong emphasis on shareholders’ welfare. There are yet other aspects to the corporate governance subject, such as the stakeholder view and the corporate governance models around the world (see section 9 below).
There has been renewed interest in the corporate governance practices of modern corporations since 2001, particularly due to the high-profile collapses of a number of large U.S. firms such as Enron Corporation and MCI Inc. (formerly WorldCom). In 2002, the U.S. federal government passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, intending to restore public confidence in corporate governance. (Wikipedia Jan 2010)

US Equity Market

US equities in peril; dividends slashed!

Cash dividends are slashed ... will the market notice?

Over the last five quarters, the annual rate of dividends paid by US non-financial corporations has fallen by two-thirds, from $462.2 billion to $160.5 billion.

The apparent reason for this negative trend is the intent of corporate management to radically increase stock buybacks in order to boost the value of executive options.

US Equity Market

Are profits as good as claimed?

Corporate profits depend upon your point of view

On January 28, 2006, an Associated Press dispatch proclaimed: “Corporate Earnings Good Despite Headlines”, stating that “corporate profits remain very healthy overall, and the majority of corporations are beating expectations.” Are these assertions true and does this mean that the outlook is rosy for the average investor in US equities? This article argues that the answer depends on who you are.

Retirement plans

What is the future of private pension plans?

Critical investment decisions in 'defined contribution' plans are made by unsophisticated workers.

Between 1999 and 2002, US private pension funds lost US$ 1.2 trillion in value. It would almost seem that pension fund managers had been speculating with retirement money, attempting to beat each others’ short-term performance statistics, with little interest in safeguarding the assets of plan beneficiaries.

Political intrusion and trade unionism have debilitated the pension fund industry over many generations. The end of the pension industry may now be in sight.

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Featured articles on inside pages

Stock buybacks

Stock buybacks and dividend equivalency

Corporations have argued that stock buybacks are equivalent to dividends. This article explains why this is not true and why suggesting buyback-dividend equivalency may constitute fraud.
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Securities Analysis

Crowd sourcing investment research

Free, easily available investment information is largely unexploited. This is because there is too much of it. Information, to be useful, must be processed. This processing has a time cost. This article describes how new technology allows securities research to evolve beyond the industrial techniques of the 20th century.
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US Politics

Why Congress won't kill ACORN

Closely connected with President Obama, the ACORN group of "community organizers" has drawn censure from the Democrat-controlled Congress as a result of investigative reporting by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. More ...

US equities

Sarbanes-Oxley and the shortage of equities

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, by discouraging companies to go public, will exacerbate the shortage of equities, with a negative effect on the US stock market, although this was not the intent of its authors. Poorly drafted, ill-conceived, and unfair this law does little to protect investors.
More ...

US Bonds

Bond demand exceeds supply for a decade

Over the decade, 1995-2004, the demand for US bonds of all types has surpassed new bond issues in eight of the last ten years. This is the reason that bond prices have held firm, even in 2003, when net new issues reached almost $1.8 trillion. More ...

World Economy

Signs of US losing its groove?

Thirty years ago, US income from abroad was more than double the amount of income that the US paid to the rest of the world. This year, or the next, this foreign income surplus may disappear forever. Is the US 'losing its groove'? More ...

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2010-12-31 16:01