By Diane Mueller
In an article on Law360.com entitled "XBRL Filings To Become Mandatory This June", the author, Jesse Greenspan takes an interesting point of view in saying that the US Securities and Exchange Commission's XBRL initiatives were an attempt to empower amateur analysts. It's the first time I've ever heard XBRL described in this manner which at first glance might seems to minimize the impact that XBRL is expected to have across the entire Financial Reporting Supply chain. It would be nice to think that the SEC would spend 59 million dollars to modernize the EDGAR filing system just so amateur analysts could have a field day and uncover the next bubble - but in reality, the SEC is also being self-serving as there is no way that the current system could continue in place without such an XBRL-enhanced modernization effort.
A nice side effect of the SEC's XBRL initiatives is, indeed, empowerment of individual investors and analysts to freely access high quality tagged data that will now be machine-readable. This should lower the cost and barriers for so-called amateur analysts to come up with their own algorithms and financial models - perhaps landing them on "the cover of Fortune magazine" - as the article goes on to quote a parther at a respected law firm. To read the entire Law360 article, click here: XBRL Filings To Become Mandatory This June
