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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TraderXx who wrote (37296)	3/5/2002 12:58:59 AM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 99280

So for you to then reply with reasons of why you are a short trader just proves my point of your bias and your agenda. Pray tell.... Just what do you think my "agenda" is. BTW - I am not sure one way or another whether or not there is more to be made on the short side vs long side. On the DOW, I believe short. I believe the Naz fair value is about 1000 or so. Quite a haircut from here. The only question is: will we get there and that I can not answer, but I do believe we will sometime. That said, there really is no rerason why we can not go to Naz 2100 first. I will continue to try and work this options pain game in the meantime, while we are just drifting about. M

To: TraderXx who wrote (37296)	3/5/2002 6:42:32 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 99280

Buffett says CEOs bear responsibility for full disclosure By Deborah Lohse Mercury News NEW YORK - How do you prevent the next Enron? Make secretive CEOs fear the wrath of investors, and make boards act more like aggressive Dobermans and less like cocker spaniels. That advice -- from billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- and a lot more emerged from about a dozen lawyers, investors, professors and accountants at a public forum held by the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York on Monday. They discussed problems such as incomplete financial disclosure to investors and poor oversight by auditors -- issues at the heart of the unfolding scandal at once-mighty energy giant Enron. The group featured such Wall Street luminaries as Dick Grasso, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange; Marty Lipton, a lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and James Copeland, chief executive officer of accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. Panelists generally agreed that investors need better, clearer information from management; the auditor watchdogs on boards need to be more adversarial; and the next CEO who claims ``I'm not an accountant'' shouldn't expect much sympathy. Among the suggestions: • The buck should stop at the top. ``I would suggest that the CEO regard himself as the chief disclosure officer,'' Buffett said. Buffett suggested CEOs pretend their annual report to shareholders is a letter to a hypothetical business partner who has been out of the country for a year, and needs to know about key events affecting the company. If the letter instead sounds like something written by a public-relations firm, Buffett said, investors like himself need to flex their muscles. He said major groups that advise large investors on corporate votes -- including Institutional Sharehodler Services -- should withhold voting on items close to management until given an understandable accounting of the year. At Berkshire Hathaway, ``There have been times when we've withheld our vote, and that's when we heard from management,'' said Buffett. ``It's much better to have the CEO disciplined by his owners than by courts.'' • Tell us more. The group warmly received the SEC's attempts to increase disclosure in the ``management discussion and analysis'' section of annual reports, known as MD&A. ``The whole annual report should be the MD&A,'' said Buffett. ``This concept of `I'm not an accountant' is an abused concept,'' said Dwight Churchill, head of fixed income at Fidelity Investments. • Audit committees -- board members who oversee the company's outside auditors -- should police more and administer less. Audit committees feel compelled to examine many things that don't involve policing auditors, such as Y2K preparedness in 1999, Buffett said. Audit committees should ask outside auditors three or four questions -- including whether they know of any ways management shifted revenue or expenses into another quarter to make results look better -- and record answers in board meeting minutes in case of future lawsuits, he said. Steve Friedman, senior principal at MMC Capital, said suggested a ``derivatives university'' to teach board members about complicated securities. ``Inevitably I think we are going to put more burdens on the audit committee,'' he said. • Former auditors shouldn't be allowed to join the companies they once audited for some period of time, one panelist said. If auditors hope to work someday for their clients, they are more likely to curry favor, said famed class-action lawyer Melvyn Weiss. ``Every single (accounting) fraud I've been involved in . . . has had a revolving door problem,'' he said. • Use lawsuits with discretion. The risk of lawsuits is scaring away some quality board members just when they are most needed, said Friedman. Safe harbors are needed, many panelists agreed. ``We have to encourage them and not scare them anymore,'' said Friedman. John White, a lawyer with Cravath Swaine & Moore, said it worried him to hear talk about forcing companies to disclose important corporate events right away, rather than once a quarter as a snapshot. He said it puts management at risk of being sued for not being immediate enough. • But don't discount the power of the lawsuit to keep companies honest. Weiss said a pivotal 1995 law aimed at curbing lawsuits had actually encouraged fraud at large trusted companies because aggressive accountants felt insulated. Panelists disagreed on who should police accountants. Some lawyers and accountants suggested that a public oversight board proposed by the SEC should be staffed by industry professionals. Weiss suggested it be a quasi-governmental agency with members appointed by the U.S. president. William Allen of New York University School of Law, a former executive with the International Standards Committee, said the new oversight committee shouldn't write accounting rules, just decide on the best people to enforce them. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------