Roland Cycan

International Valuation Standards: The Only Viable Alternative to Mark-to-Market

Goldman Sachs, AIG, Blackrock, and other big financial institutions have thousands, or tens of thousands, of outstanding financial assets that are not easily valued.

They simply cannot have a process that is expensive, tedious, and time consuming each quarter end. I disagree with you when you say that the expense, tediousness, (and time consumption?) involved is not a reason for not doing the valuation properly (properly meaning by IVS standards). I say that it is a reason, and a good one.

International Valuation Standards: The Only Viable Alternative to Mark-to-Market

This is very interesting in concept, but the apparent difficulty of valuing other than market value assets may be its undoing. If it is difficult (and therefore expensive and lengthy in terms of time) it probably isn't practical on the scale needed for the financial markets and finanncial statements.

If you could pick a representative sample of real and difficult to value assets (a CDO, a CMO, a CDS, a severely undervalued stock trading on an exchange [Citi?], perhaps some major multimillion dollar equipment piece) and walk through the evaluations, it would lend credence to your arguements.