April 18, 2008 12:04PM

T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-C-Y

By Alexis Glick

Will the way we look at financials change in the future? Should they be evaluated in a different light given the current environment?

Reading Citigroup’s press release at 6:30 a.m. and being able to analyze it a half hour later is VERY HARD. Especially if you have to analyze the numbers before the conference call with the CEO and CFO begins! The press release is about 13 pages long and the type is tiny! So hard to get through all of the financial language given the subprime, leveraged loan, loan loss reserves and increased delinquencies. You feel like you need a PhD :)!!! I’m not kidding!

So this morning Arindam Nag a columnist for Dow Jones Newswires, who has covered this industry for 16 years, told me why he thinks banks will be judged on capital reserves and ratios, rather than earnings.

It was a great discussion. He sheds a lot of light on the current crop of new executives like Pandit at Citi and Thain at Merrill Lynch and why they could be more successful because they’re known for being more “TRANSPARENT.”

Take a look.