Thirteen percent of Greeks said they had confidence in their country's banks or financial institutions in 2012, leading the nearly all-European list of countries where trust in financial institutions was among the worst in the world last year. Seven European Union countries had trust levels lower than 30%, far below the median 55% across 135 countries. Even in the EU's largest funder of the eurozone bailouts, Germany, fewer than four in 10 (38%) expressed confidence in their country's financial institutions. read more on Gallup homepage

Keywords: Banks, Trust in Banks, Corporate Finance

Keywords: Corporate Profits, GDP, Growth

..."I have been an advocate of restructuring insolvent banks according to these basic capitalistic principles, which requires no public funds.

The difference with the “bail-in” is that the order of creditor seniority is changed. In the end, it amounts to the cronies (other banks and government) and non-cronies. The cronies get 100% or more; the non-cronies, including non-interest-bearing depositors who should be super-senior, get a kick in the guts instead.

Here’s what it looked like in Cyprus:"

read more in Forbes

Keywords: Cyprus, Bail Outs

Keywords: Long Term View, Focus, Value Investing

Abstract:

"This paper examines the SEC 2011 regulation requiring an advisory (non-binding) shareholder vote on the compensation of the top five highest paid executives – “say-on-pay” (SOP). Using a unique dataset of the first two years of SOP votes from the Russell 3000, we find approval (reject) votes are associated with firms that have: better (lower) financial performance, higher (lower) market returns, lower (higher) returns volatility, lower (higher) total compensation, lower (higher) abnormal CEO compensation and lower (higher) abnormal accruals. We also find evidence to suggest that firms that receive a high level of SOP rejection votes subsequently reduce the growth of executive compensation levels. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it is the first to empirically examine the first two years of SOP votes in the United States. Second, our analysis provides evidence of shareholder efficiency in identifying excessive CEO compensation and poor financial performance, thus suggesting that shareholder voting rights are an effective mechanism of corporate governance that addresses the problem of incomplete contracts and management rent extraction. The first two years of SOP votes in the US votes show a great degree of shareholder sophistication in recognizing the monitoring and reward tools that need to coexist between the owners and firm managers."

Keywords: Say on Pay, Corporate Governance, Executive Compensation, Voting Rights

We recently sat down with world-renowned money manager Felix Zulauf to get his view on global markets. Felix discusses the European debt crisis, the rebound in Chinese equities, the recent Japanese election and its impact on their markets, the U.S. markets in light of our fiscal issues, and much more. read more on Euromarketsite

Keywords: Felix Zulauf, Euro, Global Economy, China

Keywords: US Economy, Eurozone Economy, S&P, Euro Stoxx

Keywords: S&P, Tech Stocks