SEC continues with mark to market

[wimpy77]

SEC Has No Plans to End Mark-To-Market Rules - Financials * US * News * Story - CNBC.com


looks like it wont be suspended.

 

[toomuchtime_]

SEC Has No Plans to End Mark-To-Market Rules - Financials * US * News * Story - CNBC.com


looks like it wont be suspended.

On the other hand,

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday argued that regulators should make some improvements to controversial mark-to-market accounting rules at the same time as lawmakers create a systemic risk regulator that will fill in 'shocking gaps' in regulatory oversight.

"We all acknowledge that in periods like this when some markets don't exist or are highly illiquid that the numbers that come out can be misleading or not informative," Bernanke said at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington. "We need to provide more guidance to financial institutions about what are reasonable ways to address the valuation of assets that are traded at all in highly problematic markets."
Also known as "fair value" rules, mark-to-market is an accounting methodology that requires banks and other corporations to assign a value to a financial product, such as a mortgage security, based on the current market price for the product or similar product. However, the market for troubled mortgages securities and other illiquid assets owned by banks have frozen up, making valuation of these securities more difficult.

Bernanke: We need improvements to fair value rules - MarketWatch

Perhaps it will be suspended.

 

[wimpy77]

the sec has the mandate to suspend and from the cnbc article they aren't going to do it. they may make some changes.

 

[toomuchtime_]

the sec has the mandate to suspend and from the cnbc article they aren't going to do it. they may make some changes.

That's probably right. I should have said the rule may be modified, but if it is modified, the fact that there is no market for the derivatives will have the practical effect of lowering the liquid assets reserves the banks carry, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.