Wall Street Journal Project

List of Articles * Deal Trips Up Caterpillar in China * Shell Plans to Boost Exploration Budget * Nasdaq Faces Facebook Fine * SEC Freezes A Swiss Account Over Heinz Trades * Payroll Tax Whacks Spending * Fed Sticks to Script, Bank Goes Off * Advisers Help Decide When to Fire an Accountant * China Audits Demand Hong Kong Rigor * FASB Proposes to Amend Guidance on Discontinued Operations * Regulators Close Banks in Kentucky, Florida

Deal Trips Up Caterpillar in China
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013

Last June, Caterpillar Inc. paid $700 million for ERA Mining Machinery Ltd. Ever since the purchase last June, Caterpillar hasn’t been doing so well in China. ERA’s value could be written down “by $580 million, blaming “deliberate, multiyear, coordinated accounting misconduct” that was designed to overstate profit at the unit before the deal.” If Caterpillar doesn’t end up doing well in China then it risks losing it’s higher ranking among other construction machinery. Caterpillar still has a few plans to try before giving in easily.

Shell Plans to Boost Exploration Budget
Friday, February 1st, 2013

Shell and many other oil companies, are planning on expanding the funding for exploration this year. The oil industry is a competitive market and all companies are constantly thriving to become on top. In order to replace declining oil reserves, Shell, and other oil companies are needing to use more of their budget to explore and find more oil wells in order to replace the declining reserves and to increase their net profit.

Nasdaq Faces Facebook Fine
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

When Facebok Inc. debuted last year, Nasdaq made several mistakes that could have cost Wall Street nearly $500 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is in talks with Nasdaq in regards to a settlement that would pay customers for their losses, but Nasdaq executives have made it known that they have no obligation to make up for the losses that they have faced. Nasdaq is ready to put the past behind them and get this all settled so they can start over.

SEC Freezes A Swiss Account Over Heinz Trades
Sunday, February 17th, 2013

The SEC has “frozen the assets of a Swiss trading account that allegedly made a series of “highly suspicious” trades reaping about $1.7 million ahead of the blockbuster sale of H.J. Heinz Co.” The shares jumped from the low price of $12.02 to $72.50, the timing of the amount of the trades alerted the SEC since Heinz hadn’t traded in the last six months, but when they chose to, they won big. The priority of the Heinz account has been the fastest ever filed by the agency. If the SEC wouldn’t have acted so quickly to freeze the account, the money could have been gone and then they would have no way of getting the money back easily.

Payroll Tax Whacks Spending
Friday, February 22nd, 2013

With the new federal payroll tax causing American’s paychecks to be shorter, stores and restaurants like Wal-Mart and Burger King, are rethinking their sales and marketing strategies to correspond to the change in American’s Income. If American’s get paid less, then they are going to buy and eat out less. With more store brand products and cheaper dollar menus, companies are trying to compensate for the loss of Income and recreate the same products for less, hopeful to increase sales.

Fed Sticks to Script, Bank Goes Off
Thursday, March 14th, 2013

After the results of a “stress test,” Ally Financial is in a disagreement with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is taking a much higher loan-loss estimate than the company is actually showing. Instead of the Federal Reserve answering why they are showing different figures than the company, they are strictly sticking to a script and aren’t allowing any give and take about the numbers. The Fed told its employees exactly what “script” to read so that each bank received the same treatment. Instead of the bank getting answers about why they made a certain “grade,” they are all getting the same generic answers unrelated to the issues at hand.

Advisers Help Decide When to Fire an Accountant
Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

During tax season, many people lean towards their accountants for assistance. Sometimes accountants make small mistakes, but when they make big mistakes and often, sometimes you can be unaware. Advisors have become helpful in assisting clients spotting problems with their current accountant.

China Audits Demand Hong Kong Rigor
Wednesday, March 27th,2013

Apparently in China it is against the law to hand over audit files. The U.S. authorities have been fighting to get the audit files for the when they work in China. When an auditor was hired to audit the Chinese accounts, the auditor resigned after finding irregularities, this drew the attention of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). Since China will not hand over the files, the U.S. filed a dispute.

FASB Proposes to Amend Guidance on Discontinued Operations
Friday, April 5th 2013 The FASB issued a proposed ASU that would disclose more information and expand requirements for disposals. “The proposed guidance would not change the requirements for the presentation of discontinued operations in the financial statements; however, it would require entities to disclose additional information about such operations.”

Regulators Close Banks in Kentucky, Florida
Friday, April 19th, 2013

Only four months into 2013, eight banks have already failed. First Federal Bank in Lexington, Kentucky and Heritage Bank of North Florida in Orange Park, Florida were the two most recent to be closed. Other banks will assume all of their deposits and buy most of all of their assets. “Depositors of the failed banks will automatically become depositors of the new banks and deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC.” Even with failed banks, the FDIC still insures the customers deposits.

My Thoughts When we were first assigned this project I honestly thought it would be a lot easier than it was. I thought finding the articles would be a piece of cake. I don’t know if maybe it just wasn’t a good time of year for accounting in the Wall Street Journal, but it did prove to be a little more difficult to find articles. However this proved to be a good thing. Even though finding the articles was difficult, I thoroughly read almost the entire paper looking for them everyday (I received the paper edition as well as the online). It has now become a habit of mine to read the paper during breakfast every morning, and I have to admit that I learned a lot. I learned that there are a lot of finance problems in the world and that there are plenty of issues that aren’t covered on the news. I learned that the SEC, GASB, FASB, and etc. are mentioned a lot. I learned that a lot of company’s problems are accounting department related. A lot of mishandled funds, errors in the books, employees stealing money, payroll errors, higher taxes, and stocks. It’s difficult distinguishing finance, marketing, and accounting in the paper. To me, it all deals with a company’s finances and isn’t that what accountants are supposed to do? In my accounting classes we focus a lot on the company’s revenue, net Income, capital, expenses, and etc. The Wall Street Journal is basically an extended textbook. Everyday there are several stories dealing with company’s budgets. Most of them mainly deal with Finance, but then again it could be accounting related as well.