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To: terry richardson who wrote (93504)	8/11/2001 1:47:29 PM
From: isopatch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

terry. SEC will "eventually" act. The scams are legion in a Bull Market of this length. The whole Pro Forma issue, important though I agree it is? Just the tip of the iceberg IMHO. Trust me, I've been through big Bear Markets before. In the next 12 month the guano will be hitting the fan on a scale that will blow the minds of folks with less than 20 yrs experience. One exception will the the most astute who are excellent students of history. And we have a couple of 1st rate ones on this board IMO. BTW, how are you positioned in the markets these days? TIA. Glad to see you coming back to post. Just ignore the one on one between me and Tommaso.<g> I'm always happy to respond to contributors who aren't provoking trouble every every chance they get like "Mr T. Isopatch

To: terry richardson who wrote (93504)	8/12/2001 2:21:40 AM
From: t4texas	Respond to of 95453

saw on tv that yahoo! was first with pro forma info i don't know the "first" company to report pro forma earnings publicly only to report as required the GAAP info in the 10Q's. i saw or read recently that yahoo! was first to do this. assuming this is true i suppose if there is general acceptance of pro forma numbers and no enforcement agency for gaap in the reports to shareholders (until the required sec 10Q's are filed), then it is caveat emptor (buyer beware) as always. institutions and people who own stocks and don't get themselves familiar with pro forma vs. gaap are just the sheep (or the fish at the poker table) that keep feeding the money for the game to go on. surely all the institutions and many of the individual stock holders knew (and know) what is going on with pro forma earnings reports. they are just trying to play the game a bit longer "because it has worked so far." if yahoo! was the first blatant pro forma user, i liken it to something like the germans did with the rheinland in the 30s. if the "powers that be" don't push back, then it must be all right -- and that felt good so let's see how much further we can press our luck. i am lucky in that i have been able to read p&l, cash flow, and balance sheets for most of my working life. i was stumped when i read pro forma earnings several years ago, and just thought at first that it was a quick way to get some info out without all the balance sheet type info. in time it appeared to be ebitda type info carried to the extreme. sort of like humpty dumpty said (and i cannot quote it directly), a word means exactly what i want it to mean -- nothing more and nothing less. certainly wall street and the wall street analysts knew that pro forma earnings were just a way to make a poor report or a good report look better. as long as there is no standard earnings reporting structure required by the sec, stock holders' ability to collect money from companies will depend more on their lawyers' abilities than any laws. i don't think gaap earnings info is so hard to generate for any company when they do their press releases. just look at dow chemical's earnings when they have come out. it is all there with lots of text to say what is bad and what is good about their biz. i am not recommending dow, but at least they don't seem to be hiding behind some smokey pro forma numbers, and it is the only example i remember at the moment. i have to ask the board: why hasn't the sec, long ago, dictated that financials released for investor consumption must be gaap compliant?