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

To: cfoe who wrote (120658)	6/18/2002 7:40:31 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

That is, those who don't like proforma accounting now, when QCOM is booking investment losses, forfeit their right to complain about future earnings if they include substantial non-operating profits. Nicely stated....I agree completely. My only caveat to your statement is that I hope Qualcomm keeps their current accounting system. QSI is a nice clean way of presenting the various investment gains/losses. I hated having to look the various footnotes to earnings to figure out how well the quarter went. Slacker

To: cfoe who wrote (120658)	6/18/2002 10:40:35 PM
From: hueyone	Respond to of 152472

CFOe, The main point of my comments was that I have found the trailing twelve month earnings posted on the quote page of Yahoo to mirror earnings results reported in 10Ks for various companies when I have checked periodically over the last couple of years. Then I thought I should also point out that Yahoo has a separate research section that uses pro forma earnings numbers instead---where it just so happens that most tech companies usually find a way to turn a loss in to a profit. If I sounded a bit cynical---well, that is because I am. As far as QCOM specifically, I have not checked the details of their reporting lately, but I can remember QCOM being sited as an example of questionable pro forma reporting a year or two ago in a Motley Fool column. I believe it was a column by Bill Mann. I used to have this column in a QCOM folder, but I lost this folder (another story altogether). Either me or Mike Buckley posted this column to the Gorilla thread at the time, and I recall Mike Buckley posting some comments about perceived inconsistencies in QCOM's pro forma reporting. QCOM appeared to be booking some investment gains in to their pro forma numbers, while at the same time failing to include some investment losses in their pro forma numbers--- which to us seemed like equivalent situations. Perhaps QCOM has significantly improved the consistency and fairness of their pro forma reporting since that time. Best, Huey

To: cfoe who wrote (120658)	6/19/2002 12:36:42 AM
From: pcstel	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 152472

those who don't like proforma accounting now, when QCOM is booking investment losses, forfeit their right to complain about future earnings if they include substantial non-operating profits. LOL!! You must be joking??? The investment losses Qualcomm is booking now are CHUMP CHANGE compared to the Magical ProForma Shell Game they were playing a couple of years ago. Watch this one.. Nothing up my sleeve.. Presto.. We will sell equity in one of our investments (Leap Wireless) during the last week of the quarter to help make our numbers. And we will INCLUDE the sale of this one-time gains INTO our Pro-Forma. After all, Investing IS one of our business segments. Then comes the Globalstar 600 million dollar write off the next quarter. Of course they EXCLUDE the loss on investment from the ProForma because it is not an investment, but merely a business segment that is no longer an on going concern to the company. Yet, the next quarter when Globalstar paid them about 35 million dollars.. Well, suddenly Globalstar was a relevent business segment again, because they decided to book the 35 million in QWS and in the Pro Forma. Ironic since a couple of Quarters earlier the excluded the Globalstar 600 million write off from the ProForma because Globalstar was not relevent. Sure it was nice for them to "come clean", but it would have been better if they did so before playing the Magical Pro Forma Shell Game for a couple of years. And so it goes, PCSTEL

To: cfoe who wrote (120658)	6/19/2002 3:08:31 AM
From: hueyone	Respond to of 152472

CFOe: I believe this is that old Motley Fool column I was referring to---dated February, 2001: FOUR WAYS INVESTORS ARE TRICKED fool.com Snip:Take the recent Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) earnings release. Net income has more figures excluded from it than included. A footnote regarding the fiscal first-quarter numbers reads, "Pro forma results exclude asset impairment and other charges related to the Globalstar (Nasdaq: GSTRF) business, amortization of goodwill and other acquisition-related intangible assets, employer payroll taxes on employee non-qualified stock option exercises, charges related to an arbitration decision against the company, unrealized changes in market values of derivative instruments, unrealized other than temporary impairment of marketable securities, and the cumulative effect of an accounting change." But here's the kicker: After all that excluding, Qualcomm left in investment gains. How is that all those "one-time" charges should be excluded from pro forma net income when onetime investment gains are included? Best, Huey