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Importance of Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Sarbanes - Oxley Act is the United States federal law that amended and supplemented existing requirements in corporate financial reporting and accounting practices. Commonly called SOX Act was signed into law by President Bush on July 30, 2002. After highly publicized corporate financial scandals including Enron and WorldCom the purpose of the Act was to restore investor's shaken confidence in the market and truthfulness of corporate financial statements and close loopholes in the law that led to fraud. The Act that got the name from two sponsors Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes and Rep. Michael G. Oxley created strict new rules for accountants, auditors, corporate officers and more strict record keeping requirements. Also it added new, more stringent criminal penalties for violation of this law. The new law set out reforms in four principle areas: corporate responsibilities, criminal punishment, accounting regulations and new protections. SOX is a lengthy and complex peac...

OTCQB -what you need to know

OTC Market Group is American financial market with headquarters in New York City that provides price and liquidity information for almost 10,000 over-the-counter securities. Stating that they recognize that companies come in different shapes, sizes and stages of development so one standard is not suitable for all OTC Market Group has three different market tiers: OTCQX, OTCQB and Pink. Each tier have different standards, reporting requirements and level of disclosure. Pink market tier is considered the lowest because it doesn't have financial standards or reporting requirement. Stock in Pink tier are not required to be registered with the SEC. Companies have the opportunity to upgrade their status to OTCQB market if they met certain requirements, giving investors most current information possible while reducing the trading limits and restrictions companies may face on the Pink Market. OTCQB Venture Market, middle tier in OTC Market Group, is for early-stage developing ...

Market value ratios

Often when you read the business section of newspaper or when you are doing research about particular company on the stock market you come across different ratios. There is so many of them so if you are not accredit investors there is a chance that zou sometimes get confused but these metric are actually helpful if zou know how to interpret them. Bascically they measure quantitive assesments commonly used for comparing and tracking performance. That is why are so widely used by analysts in assesing performance and investing recomendation and by company's mangement also. Depending on the goal of analysts he will choose from range of available data to build metric suitable for that same goal. Company's executive and project managers have differenet goals so they will use different metrics, while the first will concentrate on corporate finance the other will focus on strategec projects. Following the previous article on due diligence we will primarily focus on the positio...

Due Diligence - basics

Due diligence is defined as investigation or audit that reasonable business and person undertakes before potential investment or before entering an agreement to confirm all facts. Most investor are doing research before buying a security but due diligence can be done by a seller who investigates buyer's capability to complete the purchase. After the Securities Act of 1933 due diligence become common practice in United States when brokers and dealers became responsible for disclosing all relevant information about securities they were selling or they will otherwise be accountable and liable for prosecution. This put brokers into sensitive position where they could be unfairly prosecuted. In response creators of the Act set rule that says if broker performed due diligence when investigating companies whose securities they are going to sell and disclose that information to the public they are not held accountable. Not only prospective investors perform due diligence but also ...

Annual report

Annual report is an audited corporate document that details the business activity and financial status over the previous year. It became regular part of corporate financial reporting after stock market crash in 1929. Annual report is distributed to shareholders at the end of the year and SEC also requires from company to file annual report on the form 10-K. Annual report contains audited financial statement and other company related data like in dept information about company's products, services, competitors, management and legal proceedings. Investors can access reports through EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval) and download report for free. Annual reports that is sent to shareholders and stakeholders consist of records of company's activities during the past year and financial and operational information. Included information are general corporate information,graphs and photos, financial and operating highlights, letter to shareholders from CE...