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Technology Stocks : Etec Systems moving up -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Curlton Latts who wrote (1202)	4/5/1999 11:45:00 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1279

It looks better to recast your losses as a non-recurring item<< >>I call that suspicious accounting because these non-recurring items normally have a tendency to recur over and over again. Speaking as an accountant that has been an investor before and during college and for many years since, suspicious would be a word. You might call in unethical, but would miss the mark because of a very long list of arguments. The fact is virtually every company does it at one time or another. The mechanism is simple, it must be non-recurring; like say writing off losses on an aborted attempt to enter the credit card business (e.g. AT&T). Sometimes the arguments given accountants why the charges are one time are very spurious. Competition for audit business keeps the accounting firms in line. The counter balance is fear of litigation, and the ambulance chasers haven't been able to crack this one yet. >>I do not mean to imply that etec will do this, but, across business landscape the number of dumb managements that have done this is huge. "Dumb Managements", I disagree with you, one you have committed to have no ethical values, this actually seems quite smart. Analysts only rate you on continuing businesses. If management just is unlucky about getting into and out of losing businesses, why should they be punished? <VBG> Peter