The worldwide insurance industry may be worth more than you think. Industry analysts believe that reporting isn't as consistent as it could be, and that improvements to insurance financial reporting would pump up those stock prices.

PricewaterhouseCoopers interviewed more than 40 investment professionals from the U.S., Asia and Europe, finding that dissatisfaction with insurance financial reporting was widespread. They'd like to see the International Accounting Standards Board and Financial Accounting Standards Board build a better mousetrap for the industry.

Continue reading Better reporting standards could hike insurance stock prices

Better reporting standards could hike insurance stock prices originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Former Federal Reserve chair and current presidential adviser Paul Volcker says that the global economy may be deteriorating even more precipitously than it did during the Great Depression.

"I don't remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world," he said at a Columbia University luncheon. He also dismissed the notion that the financial innovation of the past decade has had any positive results: "There is little correlation between sophistication of a banking system and productivity growth."

Continue reading Volcker says this could be worse than the Great Depression

Volcker says this could be worse than the Great Depression originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.