How banks can manage earnings

No surprises, it's the loan-loss reserve. Businessweek with more details.

News Corp - underlying economics or big bath?

News Corporation recently announced its full year 2008-09 earnings, and they included large write-downs. By large, we mean just under $US9 billion. Now we'd expect large write-downs given the impact of the "Global Financial Crisis"; but now would be a good time to take an aggressive approach to write-downs. Here's how The Australian (owned by News Corporation) reported the results. Here's the New York Times take on it. Here's the conference call transcript News held with analysts and investors.

* Photo by Flickr user oh_simone. Original photo here.

Earnings management and earnings quality

Kin Lo from the University of British Columbia has posted an easy-to-read (i.e., no statistical analysis) article about earnings quality and earnings management at this SSRN link.

* Photo of UBC by Kevin.Creamer - taken from his Flickr page.