Ron,
If I'd taken some bean-counting courses decades ago
I hope you don't have the impression that I'm a bean counter or have any accounting expertise. The closest I've come to counting beans is weighing them while preparing a recipe in the kitchen. By the way, I do indeed cook a mean dish of black beans. :)
I'm interpreting "net of" to mean "excluding". Is that how you meant it?
Yes. Since you didn't ask :), the reason I exclude them is because my interest is in assessing FCF that is generated from core operations, the making and selling of product. The tax benefit related to employees' options has nothing to do with core operations. Instead, it has to do only with whether employees are converting their options to stock.
You probably don't need to be reminded that I follow FCF per share more closely than FCF. That's because it takes into account share dilution, including dilution caused by employee stock options. For the same reason it would be meaningless to evaluate earnings without evaluating EPS, it would be meaningless to evaluate FCF without evaluating FCF per share. That's a point that I gather Huey seems to ignore in my posts when he conveniently quotes them out of context, as I believe he regularly does and did again in his most recent post here in the folder.
Speaking of Huey (which you also did :), now that he has surfaced in this folder, I believe for the first time, he will be immediately added to my extremely short "ignore" list of one person. I simply refuse to communicate with him or with anyone about anything he writes about my posts because of his otherwise most recent post to me that I promote stocks, that I have an "inflated ego" that prevents me from objectively assessing the validity of my past posts, that I write "oft stated comments that are misleading" and tantamount to "revisionist history," and that I self promote my posts as a bar for valuation. See his post at Message 19457851
My response to it at Message 19458299
Anybody who agrees with him about his impressions of me, which everyone is entitled to do, to my way of thinking would or at least should have no interest in communicating with me about anything having to do with investing. If he wants to continue quoting my posts and if people want to continue discussing his comments about my posts, that's their right. But I won't be participating. Thanks for understanding.
Now, it's been so long since I've used that little "ignore" thingie, I hope I can find it.
--Mike Buckley |
