As recounted in the Wall Street Journal ($) by David Reilly, the FASB narrowly voted to oppose deferral of the effective date of Statement 157, Fair Value Measurements. It was a 4-3 vote, as close as it can get. Recall that this wound up on the Board's agenda because of some last-moment requests for deferral by Financial Executives International and the Institute of Management Accountants. 

It didn't pan out that way. The Board may consider a deferral for nonpublic companies, and it might excuse nonfinancial assets and liabilities (from a business acquisition, for example) from Statement 157's scope, at least temporarily. No word on when that will be decided.

So, it looks like analysts will be spending a lot of time next year discussing fair value ... buckets. Specifically, Level 1 (best evidence of objective fair value); Level 2 buckets (no direct observable values, but imputed from other fair values), and Level 3 buckets (mark-to-model estimated values, 'cause there are no markets for any of the things. Voodoo!)

After yesterday, the lot of the investor is displayed (profoundly) in the first of these two photos. Actually, the first photo after applying a factor of three. And it was one vote away from the second photo.