Auditing, CPA Examination, Success factors, School record

My remarks are divided into two sections. The first section briefly summarizes the major points of the two papers. I should acknowledge that I agree with almost all of the conclusions by Farrar and Mendelson regarding the reforms which have taken place and the beneficial effects of these reforms. The second section briefly discusses one adverse effect of the institutional market not remedied by the reforms. This adverse consequence is only briefly mentioned by Farrar, while it is discussed by Mendelson, but the full implications are not considered.

In a recent article, Professors Stoll and Curley (hereinafter referred to as S–C) examined results for new issues during a short-run period and over long-run periods. The authors concluded that, “investors in new small issues floated under Regulation A in 1957, 1959, and 1963 experienced lower long-run rates of return than if they had invested in a portfolio of large stocks represented by the Standard and Poor's Industrial Average.” It was pointed out that these long-run results were consistent with the results of similar studies. Alternatively, regarding short-run results it was concluded that “in the short run, the stocks in the sample showed a remarkable price appreciation.” In fact, “short-run price appreciation was, however, considerably greater than the index appreciation.” They refer to this short-run performance as “.… perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most puzzling phenomenon encountered in the study.”

Frank K. Reilly, Rate Regulation, Capital Structure, and the Sharing of Interest Rate Risk in the Electric Utility Industry: Discussion, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 33, No. 3, Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting American Finance Association, New York City December 28-30, 1977 (Jun., 1978), pp. 752-754

Frank K. Reilly, Eugene F. Drzycimski, An Analysis of the Effects of a Multi-Tiered Stock Market, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 16, No. 4, Proceedings of 16th Annual Conference of the Western Finance Association, June 18-20, 1981, Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Nov., 1981), pp. 559-575

Industry analysis has long been a cornerstone in both the academic and professional segments of the investment community. Concepts such as “an industry providing downside protection” or “another is certain to outperform the market” have been prevalent throughout the profession. The importance of industry analysis in terms of stock price changes has been suggested by King, while the influence of the industry factor on corporate earnings changes has been documented by Brown and Ball. These studies and others have indicated that industry analysis has been an important part of security valuation.

Over the years there has been a growing interest in the over-the-counter (OTC) trading of exchange-listed securities (known as the third market). Although the third market has flourished and its advantages have been expounded, it has not been possible to compare accurately the third market with organized exchanges because of an incomplete quotation system. On April 5, 1971, the National Association of Security Dealers Automatic Quotation (NASDAQ) system began including bid-and-ask quotations for 30 stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE); see Table 1.