Tip, I think it has to do with surgeons' fees. <G> O.K., it is like, the operations we now like and the businesses we plan to stick with made a profit. However, we sold off a bunch of losers at a capital loss or had to pay big bucks to dump people or whatever and we don't want to count these expenses and losses as part of our ongoing project to make this a profitable co. So, if you are stupid enough to believe it, we are profitable. <G> And we'll never have to write off anything else, at least not until next quarter.
Really, one time writeoffs and the concept of operating profits is silly. What has usually happened, and I am not certain this is the case with AMAT, is that some cos. reorganize forever. So, instead of having a loss each quarter, they have an operating profit and a writeoff. This is totally fiction. True, the loss probably should be allocated to more than one quarter when it is realized, but it is not a non-event.
There are tons of operating losses in biotech and tech cos. Basically, they sell off an asset at a gain, but their operations did not make money. Their net may be positive. However, this time, you should count it, not the operating number. <G> Micron pulled this in 1996. Writeoffs of assets shouldn't be counted against them, but gains on sales of assets should be counted for them. They put the gain into a reduction of S&GA expense and only two or three Wall Street analysts caught them at it. I, of course, aware that they have a scam every report, hooted like an owl when I caught it. And folks wonder why I consider them pond scum. <G>
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