Back to blogging!

Ok, I needed a break! lol...took a few days off (much riding and running) and am now getting back to finance :)

So a few news stories of note:

1. Yahoo has been under criticism for executive pay. About a third of shareholders refused to vote for all of management's board recommendations. (Stay tuned, this one may not be done.)

2. If you ever get thinking that people (including managers) are not REMMs you might consider the case of Dow Jones. The company is a target of a takeover attempt, and all of a sudden managers get new golden parachute plans.

3. Salaries at the top mean very little, but I was surprised at how little they matter! From the China Post:

"Of the 386 Standard & Poor's 500 CEOs whose companies reported under the Securities and Exchange Commission's expanded disclosure requirements this year, salary accounted for only 9.5 percent of total pay. For the 11 CEOs in the group who earned more than US$30 million (euro22.47 million), salary was just 2.7 percent of total pay."

4. In an update to a case we did in class this year, "A Milan judge has ordered Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank to stand trial for market-rigging in connection with dairy firm Parmalat's collapse, judicial sources said."

5. USA Today has an interesting piece that looks at how politics, and not economics, often leads to trade deals. The article centers on possible consequences of trade barriers with China.

6. The IPO that everyone is seemingly talking about is Blackstone. It will be interesting to watch. Also be sure to check if retail investors get much of a stake. From Forbes.

7. Knowledge@Wharton provides a good article on those in or near retirement and give an interesting factoid:

"Home equity typically makes up more than 60% of individuals' net worth, according to Wharton real estate professor Todd Sinai and finance professor Nicholas Souleles."

The finance reading I did do over the past few days has been the Journal of Applied Finance. In fact a "hats off" to the editors of the Journal of Applied Finance is most definitely due. The most recent issue is flat out great. I really enjoyed it. (FTR they have many of the articles still online in their Forthcoming section. Take a look and then subscribe. Well worth it!)