Investors’ New Worry: “Auditor Risk”
By Robert Barker – Barker.Online (25 Jan 2002)
“Thank heaven for Arthur Andersen.
You may think I’m nuts, given the hellfire now licking at the once-venerable Chicago-based accounting firm that signed its name to the annual financial audits of Enron. But in the stock market, every edge counts. And the Andersen situation is offering investors a fresh edge.
Call it “auditor risk.” Investors long ago learned to weigh a bunch of different threats to the value of their shares. Some financial-services stocks suffer “interest-rate risk”: When rates go up, their stocks tend to go down. Or take overall “market risk,” such as the plunge in value that took down most every stock when trading resumed post-September 11.”
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