[quote=Huckleberry]Has anybody heard what the current situation is with the reinstatement of mark-to-market? A few months ago I had either read or heard the GAO was getting ready to re-activate M-to-M…[/quote]
Good catch. I hadn’t realized they were seeking comments about it.
Here’s the story:
“No surprise, bankers are almost uniformly opposed to a proposal to expand the use of fair-value accounting. But the plan was never meant to appeal to bankers.
It was on investors’ behalf that the Financial Accounting Standards Board floated a rule that would make banks mark to market nearly all assets and liabilities.
Advertisement
Certainly there are investors who like the idea. The only way to know whether banks threaten the financial system “is to reinstate mark-to-market and force them to deal with these underwater assets that they are being allowed to price at whatever they choose to make their books look good,” Jerome Ruffin, a self-described “consumer and investor” from Fayetteville, N.C., wrote in a comment letter.
But for every Jerome Ruffin, there has been at least one comment letter from an investor, or a firm representing billions of dollars in investor assets, taking the opposing view.”
