Somewhere, Erica Y. Williams is smiling.

Audit deficiencies dropped in 2024, the PCAOB reported in a staff publication, reversing a multi-year trend of rising deficiency rates. It observed that 39% of audits it inspected in 2024 had deficiencies, down from 46% in 2023. That’s still a “high” rate, the PCAOB said, and it’s greater than 2021’s 34% deficiency rate and 2020’s 29% rate. But it represents a move in the right direction.

The PCAOB noted a “tangible decrease in Part 1.A deficiency rates” across all firms it inspected, and “substantial improvement” among the largest firms. (Part 1.A deficiencies are those in which the PCAOB found that a firm didn’t obtain sufficient evidence to support its audit opinions.)

The larger firms were able to improve their audits, the PCAOB said, through more in-person work, more training of less-experienced staff, providing more national office resources on audit quality, and engaging in more supervision and review.

Among Big Four firms, which audit around 80% of all public company dollars, the deficiency rate dropped from 26% in 2023 to 20% in 2024. EY had the highest rate of deficiencies among the Big Four, at 28% (down from 37% in 2023). EY dropped 84 of its audit clients between January 2023 and August 2024 in order to help improve its audits.

Click here for more on the improvement of audit quality.—CV

Need a sign these are uncertain times?

Delta Airlines is so sure about uncertainty that the company withdrew its full-year guidance for 2025, citing “current uncertainty.” Now, the airline says it “will provide an update later in the year as visibility improves.”

It wasn’t always like this. At the end of 2024 (many, many lifetimes ago), the company expected sales to grow in 2025 thanks to a “resilient economy.” Was Delta ever so young? If you really want to feel bad: Back then, CEO Ed Bastian predicted 2025 would be the “best financial year in [Delta’s] history,” according to CNBC.

And now we’re…here.

In addition to withdrawing its 2025 outlook, the company also cautioned that “growth has largely stalled” on the back of “broad economic uncertainty around global trade.”

“The level of uncertainty that we’re facing coming out of the global trade discussions and skirmishes is a bit unprecedented,” Bastian told Yahoo Finance. He noted that while the “next 60 to 90 days” looked clear, “beyond that, it’s a bit murky.”

For more on Delta’s forecast withdrawal, click here.—NP

Insurance got more expensive last quarter, but hey, at least it wasn’t a sudden massive uptick in product costs that CFOs are currently contending with, thanks to tariffs. Silver linings and all that.

Commercial insurance rates increased in Q1, according to a MarketScout report, with the composite rate up 3%. This follows a roughly 2.6% increase to the composite rate in Q4 last year.

As for Q1, “umbrella and excess liability, along with automobile coverages, saw the most significant rate hikes this quarter—both increasing by 6.7%,” Richard Kerr, CEO of MarketScout parent company Novatae Risk Group, said in the report.

Insurance rates for commercial property and business interruption coverage were both up 3.6%. Rates increased 3% on business owner’s policies—a product that combines property and liability insurance.

Keep reading here.—AZ