Window dressing

Trading activity near the end of a quarter or fiscal year that is designed to improve the appearance of a portfolio to be presented to clients or shareholders. For example, a portfolio manager may sell losing positions so as to display only positions that have gained in value. Financial institutions have also been criticized for a different type of window dressing as many moved debt off the balance sheet near the end of the quarter in a temporary manner. This made the bank appear to have less leverage than it actually did.

Window Dressing

The act or practice of buying and selling securities on a portfolio immediately before a report is due in order to make the portfolio look more profitable or otherwise healthier than it has been. For example, the portfolio manager may sell stocks that have performed poorly and buy those that have performed well. Portfolios receive window dressing in order to make them look more attractive to prospective investors, which in turn makes the portfolio manager look more successful. The practice is also called dressing up a portfolio or portfolio dressing. See also: Manager Universe (benchmark).

window dressing

An adjustment made to a portfolio or financial statement to create false appearances. For example, a manager may decide to provide window dressing to a portfolio by selling stock that has declined in value and replacing it with stock that has increased in value. Such activity creates the impression of successful portfolio management.

Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott. Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

window dressing

the use of discretion in the application of ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES so as to report PROFIT and ASSET figures which are flattering to the company. Window dressing is a form of CREATIVE ACCOUNTING which is concerned with making modest adjustment to sales, debtors and stock items when preparing year-end ANNUAL REPORTS AND ACCOUNTS.

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Kazunori Sudo, Kotobukiya's president, denied the company was involved in window-dressing.

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and its former executives for allegedly window-dressing its accounting reports in violation of the Securities and Exchange Law.

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The local stock barometer firmed up on Monday, aided by some foreign buying and month-end window-dressing activities.

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In the window-dressing case, Onogi and the bank's vice presidents at the time, Masami Suda and Yoshiharu Suzuki, are suspected of concealing about 313 billion yen in bad loans in the 1997 business year which ended March 31, 1998.

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Local stocks ended a hairline higher on Monday, aided by window-dressing activities while investors across the region mulled over the impact of recent US immigration restrictions.

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Prosecutors also judged the former director in charge of the bank's accounting department as responsible for compiling financial charts related to the window-dressing maneuvers, with the former vice president overseeing such work, they said.

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Local stocks ended a hairline higher on Monday, aided by month-end window-dressing activities while investors mulled the impact of recent US immigration restrictions.

PSEi slightly up

Prosecutors have questioned a former chairman and a former president of the failed Nippon Credit Bank (NCB) over alleged window-dressing of a financial statement to conceal bad loans, investigation sources said Friday.

Ex-NCB chairman, president questioned over bank's books

Local stocks are seen to draw some strength from month-end window-dressing activities alongside bargain-hunting but any upside this week is likely to be capped by prospects of a nearing US interest rate hike.

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