Private equity firms are the prowl for larger companies.

Armed with near-record dry powder, buyout specialists this year alone have completed 68 deals of at least $500 million, according to PitchBook. This is more than double the 26 deals exceeding $500 million in 2009, bringing the two-year total to 94.

Here is further proof the economy in general is improving.

Despite stubbornly high unemployment, Standard & Poor's reported a decline in monthly default rates for all credit lines.

I see that FASB is sticking to its schedule for ending most off-balance-sheet treatment for leases, and so is the IASB. It's about time, frankly, if only to spare us poor, I mean, intrepid financial journalists from having to sort through the particulars of the current accounting treatment a moment longer than necessary.

I speak from personal experience here, having wrestled with the false distinction between capital and operating leases for a sidebar to a piece I wrote for CFO Magazine way back when. The article delved into the details of a particularly complex variation that companies were using to finance real estate, called synthetic leases.

As part of the financial overhaul, federal banking agencies have jumpstarted the process of finding alternatives to using credit ratings for calculating banks' capital levels. But alternatives are few and far between and some could be expensive too.

The various bank agencies - the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of Thrift Supervision - are seeking to gather information and comments on alternatives and on a set of criteria considered important to evaluate creditworthiness standards such as risk sensitivity, transparency, consistency and simplicity.

The European banks stress tests will be released this week, and while they may slightly bolster confidence among investors, they likely won't fix troubled banks for the long term.

The release on July 23 will focus on 91 banks, with three main groups that are the focus of attention: the German Landesbanks, the Spanish Cajas and the Greek banks.

At long last, one writer has seriously addressed the potential problems with more stimulus spending. (I sent Paul Krugman a question about this more than a week ago, via a comment on his blog, but from what I can see he has yet to address it. And Dean Baker too easily dismisses the issue, in my opinion.)

The problem is not the federal budget deficit, not at least in the short term, but the potential political fallout from bad decision making. That way, says Steve Randy Waldman, indeed lay a possible US currency crisis. And this is ultimately where Friedrich Hayek and his associates were coming from in blaming Weimar for the disasters that followed.

Brazilian companies are taking a page from their US counterparts when it comes to governance and corporate social responsibility. In a recent Latin American corporate governance survey by Latin Finance and consultancy Management & Excellence, Brazilian firms topped the rankings across different industries--not only aiming for compliance, but striving for excellence in corporate social responsibility, sustainability, board independence and other governance measures.

Companies throughout the region are showing increasing interest in building their good governance reputations in order to attract capital investment from Latin America, the US, and globally.

The number of women-owned businesses has been skyrocketing for the past 30 years, and new enterprises now are twice as likely to be started by women as men. However, revenues for men-owned businesses continue to outstrip that of women-owned businesses by almost 75 percent, according to a report by Sharon Hadary, founding executive director of the Center for Women's Business Research and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland University College. 

Hadary’s report, which appeared in the WSJ on Sunday, cited Kaufman Foundation research, US Census of Women-Owned Business data, and Center for Women’s Business Research statistics showing the total number of women-owned private businesses in the US doubled between 1992 and 2006 – from 5.4 million to 10.4 million.

I owe former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt a sincere apology as a result of last week's stock market glitch.

It seems increasingly clear that electronic trading systems are to blame for the mysterious 1,000 point intra-day dive. And as Floyd Norris thoroughly explains today, their dominance reflects a decision to replace human, market-making specialists with technology.

The surprise discount rate increase last month and the FOMC  discussions over when to begin reducing its balance sheet have really highlighted the importance of transparency in how and when policymakers plan to return things to normal -- whatever that normal may be.

Whenever there is any perceived shift in fiscal or monetary policy, there is a quick reaction in debt market spreads. The current lack of a clear exit strategy is creating its own volatility in the markets.