美元:大山不靠

综合分析,导致美元汇率在今年上半年全线下挫的原因,归根结底在于宏观经济基本面的不支持,其主要表现在以下三个方面:     

不能彻底否定美国"药方"

自美国安龙公司出事以来,美国又有一些大公司相继爆出丑闻.美国一些大公司的相继出事,引起了中国经济学界及企业界的深思.在人们的深思中,其中有一种非常明显的倾向,就是对美国的企业制度安排发生了怀疑,认为美国企业所推崇的CEO制度等企业制度,也并不科学,存在着致命的弊端,并不是企业制度的发展方向,因而不能将美国的企业制度安排作为我国企业改革的参照标准.持有这种观点的一些人,甚至对于"海归"派的有关企业改革的不少体制及政策建议,也都发生了质疑,认为绝不能再把美国企业的制度安排,当作医治中国企业所存在的疾病的药方.我认为上述看法欠妥当,我们不能因为美国不少大企业出问题,而对美国企业制度安排做出全面否定,否认美国企业制度安排对中国企业改革的参考意义.     

欧元vs美元:并非零和博弈

欧元的实行提供了一种更完善的公共产品,它将被证明对欧元区内外的使用者都有利,包括所有在欧元区内和与欧元区有商业往来的部门。欧元具有改善欧元区国家经济表现的作用,从更广泛的意义上,欧元也是合作与和平一体化的标志,从这两方面,所有非欧元区的国家都可以间接得益。     

美国债券市场上扬

投资债券划算 自去年以来,全球债券市场跑赢了股市,债券基金的高效运作和低风险特点吸引了众多投资者.据ICI机构统计,今年四月份,流入股票基金的资金从三月份的296亿美元减少至118亿美元,减幅为60.14%;而流入债券基金的资金却从67亿美元增至78亿美元,增幅为16.42%,这一减一增缩小了两者之间的差距.     

金融寡头J.P.摩根

约翰·皮尔庞特·摩根(John Pierpont Morgan,Sr.,简称J.P.摩根)(1837年-1913年)是19世纪末20世纪上半叶美国最重要的银行家,现在他的名字永远写在了一个公司的名字上面,这就是J.P.摩根公司,现在它又与大通曼哈顿公司合并为J.P.摩根大通公司(J.P.Morgan Chase Co.).     

Perceptions of auditor independence: U.K. evidence

The reality and perception of auditor independence is fundamental to public confidence in financial reporting. A new Independence Standards Board was set up in the U.S. in 1997 and the European Union (EU) is currently seeking to establish a common core of independence principles. The general setting within which audit decisions are made and independence perceptions are formed is evolving rapidly due to competitive and regulatory changes. Policy-makers must work continuously to evaluate the critical threat factors and develop appropriate independence principles. This paper explores the potential of recent regulatory reforms in the United Kingdom (U.K.), many of which are unique to that country, to strengthen the independence framework. Using a questionnaire instrument, U.K. interested parties’ perceptions of the influence on auditor independence of a large set of 45 economic and regulatory factors are elicited. Most factors have a significant impact on independence perceptions for all groups (finance directors, audit partners, and financial journalists). The principal threat factors relate to economic dependence and non-audit service provision, while the principal enhancement factors relate to regulatory changes introduced in the early 1990s (the existence of an audit committee, the risk of referral to the Financial Reporting Review Panel and the risk to the audit firm of loss of Registered Auditor status). Exploratory factor analysis reduces the factor set to a smaller number of uncorrelated underlying dimensions.     

Made in U.S.A.: a renaissance in quality

In the opinion of some journalists and business leaders, Japan's preeminence in product quality is a direct consequence of lectures delivered 40 years ago in Tokyo by two Americans--W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran. According to Dr. Juran, this view is pure chauvinist nonsense. Despite the shoddiness of Japanese consumer goods before the war, the Japanese did have a quality tradition in the superb workmanship of certain ancient crafts and in the design and manufacture of their military hardware, which, at the outset of the war, was highly competitive with our own. It was just that the Japanese had never devoted engineering expertise, capital, or management attention to the quality of exportable consumer goods. The shock of losing the war changed that mind-set. When Dr. Juran first lectured in Japan in 1954, his audience consisted of 140 CEOs. He had given the very same lectures dozens of times in the United States, but never to top management. American CEOs concentrated their attention on financial reports. Quality was a discipline that they delegated to engineers and special quality departments. In Japan, senior executives took personal charge of managing for quality; trained their managers, engineers, and employees in quality methods; developed quality measurements; pursued quality change at a revolutionary pace; and kept at it year after year until, by the mid-1970s, Japan had passed the United States in quality manufacturing. The unsung heroes of the Japanese quality revolution were Japanese managers, not American experts. Now Dr. Juran sees the beginnings of a quality revolution in the United States as global competition drives managers to focus on their nondelegable responsibilities in quality management.     

A tax-free exploitation of the turn-of-the-month effect: C.R.E.F.

By applying knowledge of the “turn-of-the-month” effect investors will improve the risk-adjusted performance of their retirement accounts by using a simple and easily implemented “switching” strategy. Our exploitation of the turn-of-the-month anomaly achieves a 17.7 percent average annual rate of return by switching between a money market account and a broad market indexed stock account. This is compared to a 15.6 percent average annual rate achieved by simply buying and holding the stock account, or a 5.8 percent rate on the money market account. Additionally, volatility is cut in half and there are no tax consequences or transactions fees when the switching strategy is used within a retirement account. Our results suggests that this strategy might be successfully implemented, under current tax laws, in qualified retirement plans and in variable annuities.     

Professor R. J. Chambers: A biographical note

The paper attempts to assess the potential value of generic standards of competence to the future education and training of accountants and the implications for education, training and assessment practices. It identifies some problems in applying the technique of functional analysis to the definition of professional standards in general before looking at the specific problems of setting standards for accountants. Eraut's classification of types of knowledge which underpin professional performance is applied to the case of accounting. These comments are related to the draft accounting standards which have been produced under the Occupational Standards Programme with particular reference to the Management Accounting Standards.