This article is also very biased, sloppy, and unprofessional. Typical Singapore reporting (no racism implied, and I'm sure our Singapore posters will agree!) Reuters should be ashamed of this reporting. In contrast, the Dow Jones story was properly reported.
"reported net income for its second quarter ended December 31, 1997, fell to US$14.67 million against $56.93 million in the previous year."
Should have stated "after charges for acquisitions". Also should have reported the before-charges income, which normally would be stated first, especially if for an acquisition. Without the qualifier, this is just plain misleading. It implies out-of-control costs or extrodinary losses, neither of which are the case.
Yes, the acquisitions are reported later in the article, but MUCH later.
"Creative shares fell in U.S. afterhours trading in the wake of the results, slipping to 19-7/8, below an unofficial close of
20-1/8."
Huh? What was unofficial about the close? The after-hours trading is "unofficial".
Big drop. The closing quote was 19 15/16 x 20 1/8. It "fell in the wake of the results" by 1/16.
Let's take a closer look at those after-hours trades, though...
In after-hours trading, there were a total of *15* trades, totaling 11,200 shares - 5 1000 share trades, 1 2000 share trade, and the rest ranging from 300 to 600 shares. The last trade was at 16:23, so nobody was anxious enough to dump their CREAF to hang-around the office very long.
"fell in the wake of the results" And I'm not sure how much of this after-hours trading was actually after the release of the results. Anyone know exactly when they were released? Would normally be 4:10 or later to avoid interfering with options trading. There were only 6 trades after 4:10, totalling 4200 shares.
The *official* closing trade was 10,200 shares at the closing offer of 20 1/8.
"Net income was dragged down by one-time write-offs totalling $60.3 million related to its acquisitions of Ensoniq, Cambridge SoundWorks and the NetMedia group of OPti Inc ."
In other words, with a just single quarter's profits, they made three key acquisitions, gobbled-up two competitors, and still had money left over for the piggy-bank. I'll opt for that kind of "dragging down" any day...
Other points seemed to be fairly reported, but these jumped out. |
