Once in a while, it’s appropriate to pay a little tribute to the staff of the IASB. I wouldn’t have the patience, the dedication or the intellectual capacity to do what they do – that is to focus on the smallest nuances of potential changes to IFRS, and to work on identifying their possible impact as…
Almost Zero Chance of SEC Accepting Global Accounting Rules announces the headline of a recent article on Bloomberg BNA. Here’s what it has to say on that: “The Securities and Exchange Commission isn’t showing any movement toward acceptance of international accounting standards for financial reporting by U.S. public companies, the chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board…
The Globe and Mail recently devoted a surprising amount of space to non-GAAP earnings measures. Here’s how it framed the issue: “Imagine, if you will, something terrible: A fire begins in your home and rages, uncontrolled. No one is hurt, thankfully, because you’re away from the house at the time. But the structure is ruined and,…
One of the many oddities of computing diluted earnings per share Among much else, IAS 33 addresses the issue of contracts that may be settled either in common shares or in cash at the issuer’s option, and says the enterprise should presume for this purpose the contract will be settled in common shares, and include the…
In a recent speech, IASB Chairman Hans Hoogervorst returns to familiar territory: “…There is still a lot of work to do. But our focus will not be so much on creating more big new Standards as on improving the presentation of the information that we already require. We recently sought feedback on our future Agenda…
The minutes of a recent meeting of the IASB’s Capital Markets Advisory Committee and Global Preparers Forum record their thoughts on a draft discussion paper on the statement of cash flows, prepared by staff of the UK Financial Reporting Council. These are some of the modifications suggested in the paper, along with some of the commentary…
A while ago, at its June 2010 meeting, CPA Canada’s IFRS Discussion group addressed the issue of reporting cash flow per share, in the following terms: Since 2003, (old) Canadian standards have specifically prohibited financial statement presentation of cash flow per share information. IFRSs are silent on this issue; neither IAS 7 Statement of Cash…
A recent Bloomberg View article, published in Canada in the National Post, muses on the success of fundamental analysis, and the challenge this constitutes to the efficient market hypothesis The author, Noah Smith, sets out the background like this: “Fundamental analysis succeeds if two things are true. First, the market has to have overlooked important…
Australia and Korea recently issued a report on differences in the interpretation of common accounting terms in Korea and Australia. Here’s how the news release summed it up: “In a joint project, the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the Korean Accounting Standards Board (KASB) looked at whether words such as ‘likely’, ‘probable’ and ‘certain’…
KPMG has recently issued Room for Improvement, the second edition of its survey of business reporting. The study presents ‘the main findings from a global analysis of the content of 270 larger listed companies’ reports, in an effort to highlight weaknesses and identify good practices in the presentation of corporate information.” These are its main…
John Hughes IFRS Blog 