Evolving American Investing Attitudes: The Hybrid Shift In Mutual Fund Distribution

This paper studies the dramatic evolution in the way American investors choose to invest in the mutual fund industry. The industry’s change from direct-to-shareholder model to a third-party distribution model is discussed, as well as the implications for future mutual fund investors. Ever since the first recorded asset and debt managers arose in the 14th and 15th centuries in Europe, investing has grown into a tug-and-pull type of system that the human mind seems drawn to. The way that Americans choose to invest their money is changing as we enter the 21st century and the new methods and procedures are having a greater impact than many of us realize. In the U.S., trillions of dollars each year are invested in mutual funds, but more and more investors are taking a less-involved route by allowing financial analysts to choose where their money is invested. In the following pages, we will take a closer look at the mutual fund market and its basic components, the ways that mutual funds have been viewed and traded in the past, and the revolutionary changes that are happening right under our noses that the average American may not even be aware of. With the help of many credible sources, such as the Investment Company Institute, Reflow Investments LLC, and the Financial Planning Journal, the change from direct-to-shareholder mutual fund distribution to third-party intermediary distribution will be explained and the effects these changes has on the average investor will be explored

An introduction to Graph Data Management

A graph database is a database where the data structures for the schema and/or instances are modeled as a (labeled)(directed) graph or generalizations of it, and where querying is expressed by graph-oriented operations and type constructors. In this article we present the basic notions of graph databases, give an historical overview of its main development, and study the main current systems that implement them

Board monitoring and earnings management: do outside directors influence abnormal accruals?

This paper examines whether the incidence of earnings management by UK firms depends on board monitoring. We focus on two aspects of board monitoring: the role of outside board members and the audit committee. Results indicate that the likelihood of managers making income-increasing abnormal accruals to avoid reporting losses and earnings reductions is negatively related to the proportion of outsiders on the board. We also find that the chance of abnormal accruals being large enough to turn a loss into a profit or to ensure that profit does not decline is significantly lower for firms with a high proportion of outside board members. In contrast, we find little evidence that outside directors influence income-decreasing abnormal accruals when pre-managed earnings are high. We find no evidence that the presence of an audit committee directly affects the extent of income-increasing manipulations to meet or exceed these thresholds. Neither do audit committees appear to have a direct effect on the degree of downward manipulation, when pre-managed earnings exceed thresholds by a large margin. Our findings suggest that boards contribute towards the integrity of financial statements, as predicted by agency theory