Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dealer who wrote (55563)	10/15/2002 4:26:24 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

deals: Here's an update from 'OLDTRADER' on the DELL thread... He recently re-entered DELL (and a few other tech bellweathers) at just about the bottom... Message 18116801

To: Dealer who wrote (55563)	10/15/2002 5:22:23 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Reuters Business Report S&P Unveils Corporate Governance Study Tuesday October 15, 5:06 pm ET By Greg Cresci NEW YORK (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency, on Tuesday unveiled a study that measures transparency and disclosure at companies in the S&P 500 Index (CBOE:^SPX - News), concluding that annual reports are often weak. The study, which "scores" companies based on the amount of information contained in their public filings, comes amid continuing debate about how to bolster investor confidence after financial collapses such as Enron Corp. (Other OTC:ENRNQ.PK - News) and WorldCom Inc. (Other OTC:WCOEQ.PK - News). Based on a 1-to-10 ranking -- with 10 representing the fullest and clearest level of transparency and disclosure -- Standard & Poor's listed 98.8 percent of S&P 500 companies as 7s or 8s overall, based on a composite analysis of the companies' annual reports and other regulatory filings. But when the companies were analyzed solely on the basis of their annual reports -- a benchmark point of reference for many individual investors -- only 1.6 percent of S&P 500 companies notched a 7 or 8, leaving the vast majority below those scores. The study included 98 questions and looked at issues ranging from ownership structure and investor rights to board management and information disclosure. "By looking at annual report disclosure alone, the study found that U.S. companies do not uniformly provide an abundance of public information voluntarily," Standard & Poor's President Leo O'Neill said at a news conference in Manhattan. "American corporations could do a lot to improve their disclosure to individual investors who don't have access to regulatory filings," O'Neill said. The study shows that the full picture of some companies comes into focus only when all of their publicly distributed financial material is pieced together. For example, housewares company Newell Rubbermaid Inc. (NYSE:NWL - News) and semiconductor equipment maker KLA-Tencor Corp. (NasdaqNM:KLAC - News) both scored a lowly 1 in the final ranking based solely on their annual reports. But they each finished with a respectable 7 overall when information from other documents was included. Some of the discrepancy at the 500 companies analyzed by Standard & Poor's might have to do with the cost of producing glossy annual reports that are reader-friendly, said Michael Blair, a partner at law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton. "The companies that still do annual reports tend to take a fairly abbreviated approach to the substance and leave that to the 10K," Blair said, referring to the annual filing form required by regulators. "The annual report becomes more of a shareholder relations question and companies simply have different philosophies about whether there's value in a glossy annual report or not." Blair noted that most institutional investors tend to pour over 10K filings when making investment decisions, diminishing the perceived importance of fancier annual reports. HOT TOPIC The issue of corporate governance has garnered a huge amount of attention in the months since Enron's implosion, a fact underlined by Standard & Poor's launch on Tuesday of a special practice devoted to the issue. Standard & Poor's new service will be headquartered in New York City and employ a core group of about 15 people, with several other people contributing to the wider corporate governance practice from offices in other parts of the world. Standard & Poor's will meet with a company's management to probe its disclosure methods and comment on possible ways to improve them, said George Dallas, head of S&P's governance services unit. Standard & Poor's will charge a fee to companies who wish to make use of its corporate governance "scoring" system, Dallas said, adding that the fees could range from $20,000 to $100,000 or more, depending on the extent of analysis necessary. "We think it's important to complement (other) analyzes of individual companies, both with regard to the letter and the spirit of their corporate governance practices," Dallas said at the news conference. Earlier this month, Standard & Poor's rival Moody's Investors Service hired a prominent expert, Kenneth Bertsch, to lead its analysis on corporate governance issues and build a staff dedicated to the issue. A slew of blue-ribbon panels and university institutes have cropped up in recent months joining regulators and shareholder activists in an effort to navigate corporate governance issues and set new guidelines. biz.yahoo.com