Professor Elam

CPA Exam Letter of Intent Day

Tuesday Oct  27, 2015

I have urged students to pick an accounting certification and begin working toward it ASAP. I notice that most fail to take the first step, which is registering to take an exam. Doing that and sending some money,  is the difference between intent and commitment! So I am passing along Texas CPA Letter of Intent Day. 

  I received this from Bryan Morgan, Grad Student at UTSA.

 

Good evening Professors,

For those of you who may not know me, my name is Bryan Morgan and I am a graduate accounting student at The University of Texas at San Antonio. I am also the current chair of the San Antonio CPA Society's Student Auxiliary.  

I wanted to reach out to all of you to share a wonderful opportunity for all of your students who are on the path to becoming CPAs.

The San Antonio CPA Society is host a Letter of Intent workshop on Friday, November 13th from 3-5pm at the CPA society Offices at 901 NE Loop 410, Ste. 420 San Antonio, TX 78209. The purpose of this workshop is to help students fill out and submit their letter of intent for the CPA exam as well as network with other future CPA candidates. We will have representatives from the TSBPA, Becker CPA Review and current CPA candidates on hand to help answer questions and clear up misconceptions about the application process.

And of course, submission of the Letter of Intent will make students eligible for a 5th year scholarship from the TSBPA worth $1,500 a semester towards completing the educational requirements for the CPA Exam.

The workshop is open to any to any student and students do not need ot be CPA society members to attend.  While not a requirement to attend, we do ask that students RSVP to Amanda Talaat at [email protected] with the subject "Letter of Intent Workshop"

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Sincere regards,

 

Bryan Morgan Jr
Chair - Student Auxiliary
San Antonio CPA Society

Low Oil Prices Cause Cash Crunch, Chinese Shopping for Bargains

Monday Oct 26, 2015

OIL-COMPANY SPENDING ON PROJECTS, SHARES OUTSTRIPS CASH FLOW

Cash flow is struggling to keep up with spending at oil companies even after all the cuts they have made, Sarah Kent and Justin Scheck report. Analysts expect the companies to show continuing shortfalls when they report earnings this week and, with the oil-price slump now 16 months old and continuing, the companies likely will take years to bring their spending under control unless prices rebound sharply.

Spending on new projects, share buybacks and dividends at four of the biggest oil companies–Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.–outstripped cash flow by more than a combined $20 billion in the first half of this year.

“After the initial shock, denial, panic and capitulation, oil producers, service providers, and energy investors must view the future differently based on the lower-for-longer oil price scenario, or risk their own,” Oppenheimer & Co. said.

Energy production is only one of the U.S. industries that say they are facing a long-term slowdown in output, sales and jobs, Theo Francis and Kate Linebaugh report. The oil-price drop has gutted demand for drilling equipment and supplies, and energy sales are expected to drop by more than a third from a year earlier and profits are likely to plummet 65%, Thomson Reuters says, based on analysts’ estimates. Quarterly profits and revenue at big American companies are set to fall for the first time since the recession.

Amid the spending cuts, U.S. oil imports are rising again after a long decline, Nicole Friedman reports. Total crude imports rose for three straight months between April and July.

 

CHINESE PROPERTY DEVELOPER SNAPS UP TEXAS OIL FIELDS

The struggling crude market has made the price of North American oil assets attractive enough to entice Chinese companies, including some previously unrelated to the oil-and-gas industry, Brian Spegele reports. Over the weekend, a Chinese real-estate developer said it will buy oil properties in West Texas as part of an 8.3 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) deal to buy an investment company. The oil properties were being acquired from two U.S. companies, Plymouth Petroleum LLC and Tall City Exploration LLC. Plymouth Petroleum is owned by Boston-based ArcLight Capital Partners LLC, a private-equity firm, and Tall City is backed by another, Denham Capital Management LP.

Meanwhile, the Alberta Energy Regulator rescinded a suspension targeting 24 pipelines at Cnooc Ltd. subsidiary Nexen Energy ULC’s Long Lake oil-sands facility, imposed after a pipeline spill, Chester Dawson reports.

Separately, Volkswagen AG has suspended a larger number of engineers than previously acknowledged after a recommendation from the law firm conducting an internal investigation into the auto maker’s diesel-emissions cheating scandal, William Boston reports.

Diesel prices have taken a hit relative to gasoline since the second quarter due to inventory builds, Reuters writes.

 

COSO's New 17 Levels of IC

Monday Oct 26, 2015

Learn more about COSO's 17 levels of control.  We study internal control in accounting.The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations has issued its first update since 1992. Click the link to learn about it!

Halloween 1938

Weekend Oct 24, 2015

Perhaps the most successful prank of the 1900s was a Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds.

The original ran for 58 minutes. The link here is a short version only 12 minutes long. 

Radio is perhaps a much more imaginative medium than television which actually shows a picture. Instead radio is a theater of the mind in which the listener composes his or her own image of what is happening. 

Read more about the broadcast here.

The broadcast reports an alleged Martian Invasion. The monsters easily dispatch army equipped with rifles, machine guns, artillery, and air power. Panic ensues and the public was not happy. 

TAMSUA Students Attend SA IIA October Meeting

Thursday Oct 21, 2015

Four of our student attended the October meeting of San Antonio Institute of Internal Auditors.

Price Waterhouse is re opening their office in San Antonio. So PwC was the sponsor and a big data analyst from their Dallas office offered up the program.  We saw lots of friends there from USAA, Aventine Hill, PwC, Resource Global, and others. Photos to follow.  That's Melody, Jason, Amanda, and Daisy left to right. 

Ferrari IPO Update

Wed Oct 21, 2015

jFerrari jumps 17% in first day trading with symbol RACE.

Strong Demand for CPAs

Wed Oct 21 2015

Demand for CPAs remains strong.  This is not the case for lawyers where too many have been produced with too high expectations. 

 

A Not so Blue Chip

Tuesday Oct 20, 2015

IBM drops 5.53% on poor earnings report.

Back in the day IBM or Big Blue as it was called was the bluest of blue chips, like Apple today. But IBM lost its way and had to be re invented by Lou Gerstner in the early 1990s. Now it is borrowing to pay the dividend and struggling again to find its place in a social media world. 

The Latest on the Ferrari IPO

Tuesday Oct 20 2015

The ticker symbol will be RACE.  This should be fun to watch tomorrow. 

 

Sonic Hits Earnings Target

Tuesday Oct 20, 2015

Sonic CEO says MCD all day breakfast is not big deal.  While MCD has been having all sorts of difficulties with menu and customer confusion, Sonic sails right along. Their two guys in the car commercials appear successful. They offer all menu all day long. Nothing is prepared before it is ordered.And they hit earnings targets just above where expected. The stock was up 5% as a result. 

I finally figured out that the appeal of Sonic is that everyone has a drive in window of their own.