Investments In Available-For-Sale Securities And Other Cost Investments
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Mar. 31, 2012
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Investments In Available-For-Sale Securities And Other Cost Investments | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Investments in available-for-sale securities and other cost investments |
Investments in Available-for-Sale Securities and Other Cost Investments
All marketable equity and debt securities held by the Company are classified as available-for-sale ("AFS") and are carried at fair value based on quoted market prices. GAAP permits entities to choose to measure many financial instruments, such as AFS securities, and certain other items at fair value and to recognize the changes in fair value of such instruments in the entity's statement of operations (the "fair value option"). In prior years, Liberty entered into economic hedges for certain of its non-strategic AFS securities (although such instruments were not accounted for as fair value hedges by the Company). Changes in the fair value of these economic hedges were reflected in Liberty's statement of operations as unrealized gains (losses). In order to better match the changes in fair value of the subject AFS securities and the changes in fair value of the corresponding economic hedges in the Company's financial statements, Liberty elected the fair value option for those of its AFS securities which it considers to be non-strategic ("Non-strategic Securities"). Accordingly, changes in the fair value of Non-strategic Securities, as determined by quoted market prices, are reported in realized and unrealized gains (losses) on financial instruments in the accompanying condensed consolidated statements of operations.
Investments in AFS securities, the entirety of which are considered Non-strategic Securities, and other cost investments are summarized as follows:
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