Abstract This article focuses on the response of American Accounting Association's Financial Accounting Standards Committee on accounting for certain investments in debt securities. The Exposure Draft covers those investments for which fair values are generally readily determinable. The Committee supports the issuance of a standard that requires recognition of such investments at fair value in the financial statements. In particular, the Committee sees no reason to treat holding gains and losses on securities available for sale differently from those on other securities. Some issues addressed in the Exposure Draft are: The classification of investments in debt securities as being held to maturity is based on assertions of management's positive intent to do so. The Committee sees no reason to treat holding gains and losses on securities available for sale differently from those on other securities.
Barth et al. (Wed,) studied this question.