News Digest of October 31, 2006

There are 7 items … Only Half of U.S. Investors Trust Companies’ Disclosure | NYSE hits snags in bid for Euronext | Will the AICPA Take Over XBRL Standards? | CEO pay seen outpacing investor returns | Wal-Mart: A ‘Reputation Crisis’ | Shares Allocated for New Grants to Employees Down 15% | Monitor110 Raises $11m More for Market Monitoring

Only Half of U.S. Investors Trust Companies’ Disclosure
49% of investors agree that they can trust companies to provide complete and accurate financial information upon which they can make investment decisions. These are some of the results of an online survey of 2,345 U.S. adults, of whom 1,345 invest in long-term financial service investment products.

NYSE hits snags in bid for Euronext
“The whole disdain of all things American is playing a larger [role] in this merger than anyone may have expected,” said Seth Merrin, chief executive of Liquidnet Inc., an electronic-trading company in New York. “George Bush has greatly diminished their odds of getting Euronext.”

Will the AICPA Take Over XBRL Standards?
Some XBRL-US members contend that the group’s leadership should include more corporate CFOs and investor-relations specialists, as well as more bankers, brokers, software makers, and data aggregators and analyzers.

CEO pay seen outpacing investor returns — FT
The pay packages of U.S. chief executives are outpacing investor returns, suggesting that their compensation is not based on performance, according to a report published Monday.

Wal-Mart: A ‘Reputation Crisis’
How much of Wal-Mart’s problem is style and how much substance? The answer is unclear at this point. However, at least some consumers are no longer shopping at the company’s stores because of its reputation.

Shares Allocated for New Grants to Employees Down 15%
Over the past six years, the proportion of shares allocated for restricted stock grants has increased tenfold as a percentage of all shares granted each year, while shares used for stock option awards have fallen by nearly half.

Monitor110 Raises $11m More for Market Monitoring
Monitior110, the pre-launch web monitoring service for hedge fund traders we wrote about in September, will announce on Monday that it has closed a Series C round of financing with $11 million from new and existing investors.

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