Internal Controls. The WSJ recently published an article about companies' frantic efforts to get their controls sufficiently in-line to prevent receiving a failing grade from their external auditors. Some initial evidence of stock market reaction to announcements of material weaknesses is provided.Click here and go to 2nd article to read the whole thing.

Drawing on a sample of 100 companies that have disclosed internal-control problems this year, a Wall Street Journal review found that most of them saw their stock prices fall around 5% to 10% immediately afterward. That's enough to cause some spilled coffee cups, but far from catastrophic. Most were small companies, and the stocks may have been reacting to other problems.