ABSTRACT
[…] the marks are based on “unobservable” inputs reflecting a company’s “own assumptions about the assumptions that market participants would use in pricing the asset or liability.” Or, as I like to say, mark-to-make-believe. For instance, that dead horse that showed up in your backyard in Aspen last winter? Some math genius […] has a model that says it’s worth its weight in uranium – and climbing – just in time to beat analysts’ earnings estimates for the quarter.
