Wed Jan 28, 2015
Here is a good link for the next step in implementing Revenue Recognition.
You should be collecting articles on this for your personal library.
I hope the grad class team working on this topic is reading this blog!
Professor Elam
Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M
about
-
Professor Elam
-
Professor Elam
Wed Jan 28 2015
How bad is it? Weather ford has decided not to replace its CEO.
Now that is cutting staff.
-
Professor Elam
Wed Jan 28 2015
This article does a good job of explaining how a stronger dollar forces Apple to take the hit on its statements.
What I do not understand is why Apple is not hedging its currency risk. On you syllabus I have a link to the CME Derivative Handbook.This would be a good time to print it out and read it.
-
Professor Elam
Wed Jan 28, 2015
An alert student posed a good question yesterday. Why is it that lower oil prices are being blamed for a slower economy ? Sure that is a problem Texas or North Dakota, but surely the rest of the country benefits from lower energy prices?
Good question.The answer is two fold. I have urged you to subscribe to the WSU and we do have links to those articles. The lead in the WSJ today is Strong Dollar Squeezes US Firms.
When the dollar rises , the price of commodities measured in dollars falls. This has a two fold effect. Massive bets have been made on $100 oil. And they ripple through the economy. Here are other articles today that reflect this.
Tumbling Oil Prices Hit US Steel
The Heard on the Street column repots Proctor and Gamble, United Technologies, and duPont are al multi nationals hurt by a stronger dollar.
Oil is the premier commodity. As I demonstrated using stock charts in class yesterday, oil has only had about 24 months over $100. Yet the mood was such that investors thought this had become a permanent condition. Now that it is 2008 again, as predicted in my companion site Market Perspective, those bad bets have come to the surface.
Recall that Other Comprehensive Income OCI reports changes in four categories one of which is currency transactions. The Strong Dollar shows just how important this can be.
-
Professor Elam
Monday January 26 2015
I first heard of MCD my freshman year at college. Not a one had ever failed so customers said; And soo they were all over Austin.
Now a series of setbacks has fewer going there. Some MCD have actually closed or failed. At any rate, a series of supplier setbacks and bad publicity dampened Asian sales.
And now up scale burger joints like Five Guys are taking sales.
Always interesting to watch the rise and fall, the product life cycle of a company.
-
Professor Elam
Monday Jan 26 2015
Here are several previous posts from 2013 on Lance Armstrong
A University of Glasgow Professor takes a look at the body language Lance Armstrong expressed on the first night of his interview with Oprah. I have said as much the same thing but interesting to hear someone outside this country with an academic opinion.
Again the second segment airs at 8 CST tonite, I hope the ethics students are watching.
In contrast, dogs are loyal. As Harry Truman remarked about Washington DC, if you want a friend in this town, get a dog.
______________________________
Dorothy Rabinowitz takes a look at Lance Armstrong. Ms. Rabinowitz is a long time member of the WSJ Editorail Board.
WE will be discussing Lance's attempt at redemption in the Ethics class this next saturday.
_______________________
Do you care what Lance Armstrong did?
I mentioned in a post yesterday the FDA investigation into Lance Armstrong. This of course takes lots of time and money. As Business Insider asks in the hyperlink, do you really want the FDA spending time and money on this?
A big controversy is the length of time FDA takes to approve drugs as well as the denial of potential life saving drugs here in the US that are available elsewhere. So what is the FDA doing, investigating baseball players an cyclists. Isn't that a job for the Commissions that rule baseball and cycling? Vote your opinion at the hyperlink.
-
Professor Elam
Monday Jan 26 2015
American Sniper has already grossed $200 Million. It is drawing move goers like myself that rarely attend the theater any more. I read Kyle's book and the movie is even more to real life than the book. The movie, which draws on his wife's viewpoint, tells the story of how the experience of four tours and becoming the Number one Sniper changed Chris Kyle.
Clint Eastwood directed and Produced (his Malpaso compnay) the film. I have discussed his success way back in the second month debut of this blog, the Good Bad and Ugly of Film Budgetting.
I re visited this topic June 20, 2009 in examining the socionomic and financial success of Gran Torino.
Eastwood consistently brings his films in on budget and on time. His first fight movie Every Which Way But Loose was the second biggest grossing film Univesal ever hd at that point behind Jaws. I checked and he made it even in 1978 dollars, a dirt cheap $5.2 millin grossing $105 million, now that's successful.
I understand the most frequently heard world in his set is, Next. The scene of the Psychologist interviewing Kyle in Sniper was done in only one take for example. Honky Tonk Man was filmed in less than a month.
American Sniper budget estimate is $58 million. Considerinng the extensive overseas location in Morrocco that is pretty amazing.
One of my research interests is Socionomics. This social science explains that happenings in society are the result of internally generated social mood. What we have here with American Sniper is an outpouring of social mood. The more a movie resonates with existing social mood, the better it will do.
In that regard there were extensive previews of movies out this spring. And I noticed a follow up to the Mel Gibons movies of the 70s. yes Mad Max from 1979. That film came out towards the end of an era of economic stagnation from 1966-1984. It mirrored the horrors of war with the energy crisis as a theme, just in synch with the second oil embargo.
Kyle served four tours in Iraq. The last scen in Iraq dissolves into one of complete mayhem, dust, violence, and the inability to see who is enemy and who is not. For me this was a metaphor for all such guerilla wars; and it summed up what was hapening to Kyle and his relationship with his family and friends. Mad Max mrrors the craziness of war in a place where nothing but a scorpion can survive and death is everyone's companion.
1966-1984 was also a period of no improvement in the stock market. If the analogy holds trued, from a socionomic perspective, this is an echo of what I believe is the current topping of the stock market.
Check out http://www.themarketperspective.com
American Sniper is R rated for violence and as you can imagine, realistic language of people in war.
-
Professor Elam
Monday Jan 26 2015
This writer at Forbes suggests the balls were at the lower legal limit and the weather, very cold, caused the pressure to fall further. That sounds right to me.
This article also explores the varuious methods of varying the ball to fit quarterback preferences.
All sports have rules, the weight and construction of a golf or tennis ball is another good example.
We have had drug use among both baseball and cycling athletes. So what are the ethical boundaries of say, good sportsmanship?
-
Professor Elam
Weekend Jan 25, 2015
Yes we attended American Sniper this weekend.
I have had good deal to say about Clint Eastwood's film directing in previous posts.
He is managerial accounting at its best.
He always come in
on budget on time and makes money
Universal / Warner Brothers loves him for that. More later
-
Professor Elam
Thursday Jan 22 2015
The layoffs re underway with the largest energy service firms taking the lead.
Next up wil be impairment write downs. Assets which do not meet cashflow expectations wil be written down. We study this in intermediate accounting, here is that requirement in action.
Professor Elam 