Ticklish Forecasts; The volatility in the marketplace, be it oil prices, foreign exchange rates or other factors, has made due diligence a thorny process.(Round Up)

Byline: Ken MacFadyen

Due diligence has never been easy, but never before has it been quite this hard. The volatility of the marketplace is forcing acquirers to take deeper dives into the treasury functions of targets in an attempt to put a gauge on risk that, before this year, was never considered so menacing.

Given the benefit of hindsight, many dealmakers today can recognize their limits when it comes to grasping things like counter-party or commodity price risks. Sure, those areas and others have always been a consideration in due diligence, but rarely would the worst-case scenarios mapped out envision a complete loss of franchise value. But with the evaporation of liquidity - even after a $700 billion Fed-funded infusion into the banking system - …