To All, the funniest piece of news in my absence was the two part take on the IBM eps reporting scam-a-rama. First, analysts noticed that IBM was actually using capital gains to reduce SG&A. Then, IBM made the point that they've been using this trick every quarter since 1994. Wow, those "analysts" are a bunch of brainiacs. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 21 quarters in a row, what the hell did I pay tuition for? <g>
Now, if the analysts are not smart enough to read the financial reports, you would have thought they might have taken heed the 821 times Fred Hickey has harped on the subject for the past 5 years. Or the 642 times Earlie has written about it. Or the 738 times the scam has been noted in The Daily Rap. Or even my handful of letters to Barron's. And, folks, I phrased it in little words so that analysts could read without straining their lips. <g>
Now, let's see how long it takes Wall Street to catch on to the other couple of dozen flim flams Lou has pulled to make IBM look like something other than a mature co. with little growth potential. |
