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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stock Farmer who wrote (114283)	2/25/2002 1:27:53 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

john, you are spot on. it is a lot easier to "market" an eps number up than it is to actually "earn" more money. buffett is one of the few who take the more difficult, intellectually honest approach. pro forma = hypothetical. people should understand this. i have no problem with giving gaap and pro forma EQUAL billing as long as the differences are honestly explained. however, we all know that is rarely done. we also know why. however, such games used to "monetize investor ignorance" (warren buffett's phrase) only last for so long... that is why q decent company like qcom can be sitting nearly 85% off its high - and still be richly valued... john, ultimately, the sec and accounting standards boards are to blame. companies are following the law - and the law inflates stock prices - and tax revenues go up... remember, the productivity miracle was bogus statistical manipulation (chain weighted dollars instead of real dollars measuring computers). manipulation is the name of the game - at the highest levels of govt all the way down to your avg worker. only folks like buffett have the integrity to "do the right thing" - even when it isn't required by law.

To: Stock Farmer who wrote (114283)	2/25/2002 2:35:46 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

You don't like pro-forma. You don't like GAAP because it has holes big enough for trucks to drive through. What do you like? Let's hear how you would do it and why. We can call it Shannons's Income Testing or "SIT" for short. I was tempted to put in an "H" for the second letter in your moniker into the acronym but thought it mean-spirited so let it go, though it was tempting. Anyway, your suggestions about ignoring GAAP in calculating EPS are astonishing. The GAAP standards may not be perfect but they are uniform, so that comparing results using the SIT standard with stodgy old economy companies' GAAP-calculated earnigns will result in an unfair comparison unless the stodgy ones also use SIT. Get my drift? Apples oranges, and and all that stuff. And by the way, what makes you think that stodgy old economy companies are the epitome of accounting pulchritude? Being stodgy doesn't count, never has, never will, and will always serve as a great front for crooks. I am sure I can dig up plenty of accounting problems in old economy stocks if I care to. Here's a sampling. KMart may have bones in its closet. Seriously stodgy. dailynews.yahoo.com Xerox probably qualifies as stodgy and old economy by now. stern.nyu.edu Safety Kleen--how much stodgier can you get than that? accounting.smartpros.com Tired of looking. It seems that you have a special bone to pick with Q, and I don't know why. The solitary joys of nitpicking, perhaps. Could be that you know that we have a fairly loyal bunch here whom you like to goad. In any event, it's all a matter of perspective--most of us are here for 90% margins in the 3G royalties which are undoubtedly Q's, its leadership in the technolgy, as well as ASIC sales. What do you say about those nits? In any event, the points you make are provocative but ultimately inconsequential. Get out of the leaves and look for the forests.