Finance paper Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Finance paper - Assignment Example On June 25, 2002, one of the largest telecommunications company, WorldCom announced that its revenues in first quarter has been overstated by over $3.8 billion. This announcement came as surprise to the investors in financial markets. The company filed bankruptcy on July 21, 2002. Prior to the announcement, the share price of the company soared as high as $64.50/share in mid-90’s which came down to less than $2/share. Similar to case of Enron, the retirement benefits and savings plan of WorldCom heavily suffered as by end of 2000 the company had 32 percent of $642.3 million of retirement funds in form of stock options. Immediately after the emergence of the scandals, Bush Administration announced that will disqualify WorldCom form all existing Federal Government contracts. Further, the House Committee on Financial Services along with Senate Committee on Housing, Banking, and Urban Affairs investigated the cases related to recent accounting scandals of WorldCom and Enron. In response to these hearing SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) was enacted on July 30, 2002. The act recommended establishment of Public Company Accounting Oversight Board that develops standard accounting for audit and increases corporate social responsibility. The mortgage meltdown has been believed to actually begin with burst of US housing bubble in 2001 that sharply increased to maximum in 2005. The â€Å"bubble† is an economic condition that occurs in local or global real estate markets where the valuation of house properties reaches unrealistic and unsustainable levels. The research has found that many economists believed that US housing bubble was mainly caused from historically low interest rates. After the burst of â€Å"dot-com† bubble in 2000 and then consequently following recession, FED cut short term interest rates to from 6.5 percent to 1 percent. The US subprime borrowing