“The compensation committee relies on its own good judgment in carrying out its duties and does not waste shareholder money on compensation consultants.” — Daily Journal Corporation 2017 Proxy Statement Reading primary sources of information remains the single most important
How to Read a 10-K Annual Report Efficiently
“We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot. But that’s not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don’t grab the right ideas or
Berkshire’s Investment Write-Downs: “Gotcha Moment” or Difference of Opinion?
It should come as no surprise to careful readers of Berkshire Hathaway’s financial statements that the company recorded an “other-than-temporary impairment loss” of $938 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 related to declines in the market value of certain equity securities. However, recent media reports seem to treat recent revelations of correspondence between Berkshire and the SEC as a “gotcha moment”. We take a look at this question in this article.
The Investor’s Guide to Amazon’s Kindle 3
Many readers will relate to this scenario: The printer is hard at work producing a 100+ page SEC Filing when the room becomes strangely silent. Surely not enough time has passed to signal a completion of the job? Sure enough, the printer has run out of paper, depleted its toner, or may even require a new drum unit. The only positive aspect of the breakdown is that fewer fine particles of indoor air pollution are being produced, at least for the moment. Surely there must be a better way? We think there is: The Kindle 3 from Amazon.com. Read this article for more details.
SEC Madoff Failures: Outlier or Systemic Problem?
The Securities and Exchange Commission has now admitted what has been obvious to anyone who has been paying attention over the past several months: Inspectors utterly failed to detect Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme despite numerous warnings over a sixteen year period that something was amiss. The Wall Street Journal reported on the contents of the “executive summary” which was posted on the SEC site on September 2. Do these revelations point to a one time lapse in oversight or a systemic problem?