VIVE LE DIFFERANCE!
Core Reported
Earnings Earnings Difference
(millions) (millions) (millions)
DuPont -$48.9 │ $4318.0 │ -$4366.9
IBM 4854.2 │ 7713.0 │ -2858.8
Microsoft 5459.0 │ 7721.0 │ -2262.0
GE 11,895.7 │ 14,128.0 │ -2232.4
Verizon -1284.8 │ 590.0 │ -1874.8
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Motorola -5492.6 │ -3937.0 │ -1555.6
Cisco Systems -2517.2 │ -1014.0 │ -1503.2
AOL Time Warner -6197.3 │ -4921.0 │ -1276.3
SBC Comm 6051.0 │ 7260.0 │ -1209.0
AT&T -6055.5 │ -4863.0 │ -1192.5
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Boeing 1711.9 │ 2826.0 │ -1114.2
Comcast -749.4 │ 225.6 │ -975.0
Lucent -15,172.0 │ -14,198.0 │ -974.0
Intel 334.6 │ 1291.0 │ -956.4
Yahoo -980.1 │ -92.8 │ -887.3
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬│▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬│▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Merrill Lynch -343.1 │ 535.0 │ -878.1
Ford 6298.3 │ -5468.0 │ -830.3
Bellsouth 1764.1 │ 2570.0 │ -805.9
Siebel Systems -467.2 │ 254.6 │ -721.8
Citigroup 13,454.1 │ 14,174.0 │ -719.9
Source: Int'l Strategy & Investment (ISI)
Nat, the above table corresponds to the one shown in the article published by Barron's.
Now, allow me to transfer your post to give life to the numbers. Thanks.
Mick (_$_)
What it shows is a comparison between two sets of earnings for 2001 of 20 companies in the S&P 500. The first is what S&P reckons those 20 companies earned according to its new, more severe standards; the other is what the companies actually reported.
As you may or may not remember, some months back, dismayed by how distended, obfuscating and downright confusing reported earnings had become, Standard & Poor's went public with a revision of earnings of all 500 companies in its index and of the aggregate earnings of the index itself. As we noted at the time, S&P's so-called core earnings excludes everything that isn't intrinsic to the business -- pension gains, insurance or litigation windfalls, unrealized gains and losses from hedging activities, that sort of thing.
Core earnings include, among other things, restructuring charges from ongoing operations, certain R&D charges that have been cheerfully omitted and, notably, the cost of stock-option grants.
We hope you're not shocked that typically core earnings are less, not infrequently palpably less, than reported earnings.
What the ISI crew has done in the table is list the 20 S&P 500 companies that have the largest negative difference between last year's core earnings and reported earnings.
The gap is not exactly modest, no matter how far down the list you go. The reasons for the discrepancies vary from company to company.
But the cost of stock options are quite prominent, especially among the techs on the roster; Microsoft and Cisco are striking cases in point.
To read Summary Execution by Alan Abelson:
( Message 17731758 ) |
