80
votes
Accepted
Numbers in parentheses in financial statements?
It means the number is negative. It's an alternate way of showing negative numbers versus prefacing with a negative sign (-)
In some cases, a negative value also has a different name. For example you'...
- 142k
30
votes
Why does Apple set the strange period for fiscal year?
Some companies want the financial year to end at the end of a month, others want it to end at the end of a specific week.
A comment noted that the end of the year for Apple has been the last Friday ...
- 145k
26
votes
Accepted
How is it possible for a company that has never made money to have positive equity?
While your assessment is fundamentally correct, you are missing one simple thing: The question is not whether it ever had an income, but what the value is of the assets held by the company.
Example 1: ...
- 11.6k
23
votes
Revealing personal information on a bank statement
You could also consider obtaining a Bank Letter (or Proof of Funds Letter) instead of using a monthly statement. American University has some sample documents on their site to show what can be used to ...
- 14.1k
15
votes
Revealing personal information on a bank statement
It may be safe to do so but still reveal stuff that you don't want to reveal and which they have no real need to know. For instance if your statement reveals you spent money at a sex toy shop it's ...
- 24k
11
votes
Accepted
Presenting negative numbers using parentheses: where does this practice come from?
I'd love to see if someone can find a convincing origin story for the practice, but I believe it became adopted simply because parenthesis stand out more than a negative sign.
Think of a hand-written ...
- 71.2k
11
votes
How should we call a company's fiscal year?
Typical nomenclature would be to refer to the calendar year of the last month of a company's fiscal year.
ie: A company with a year going from April 1 2021 to March 31 2022, would typically call that ...
- 43k
10
votes
Accepted
Why do bank statements end on *SUCH* wildly inconsistent days of the month?
Looking at your dates, I think I see a pattern. It appears that your statement closing date is always 17 business days before the last business day of the month. For example, if you start at May 31 ...
- 116k
8
votes
Accepted
Why are goodwill impairments on the statement of cash-flows of GE?
The section "Cash Flows - operating activities" starts with "Net earnings" which includes both cash and non-cash items. The non-cash items have to be adjusted with the opposite sign used in the income ...
8
votes
Someone wants to give me lots of money
You asked three specific questions:
Is this possible?
Basically, no. This is literally not possible. The highest-limit prepaid debit cards in existence in the US right now have limits around $15,...
- 17.1k
7
votes
Someone wants to give me lots of money
This is a typical advanced fee scam.
If you don't believe it, you can always do a search and check around on how the standard scam template email looks like.
- 4,203
7
votes
What are the implications for GameStop as a company in the aftermath of the current share price surge?
They had a lot of free advertisement on the international press and the web.
People like me, who never heard of GameStop before, now know what they sell (used games, consoles, etc.), how they do it (...
- 79
6
votes
Accepted
How to read "Change in Dividend Accruals"?
IB's statements are a PITA and will make you want to pull your hair out, if you have any.
I don't know what's going on from the info you posted. But let's take a stab at it.
The upper highlighted ...
- 77k
6
votes
Cash basis vs accrual basis accounting
It's not "necessary" to use accrual. It's just an option. Unless someone -- a government agency or whomever -- is telling you that you have to. In the United States, when you pay federal ...
- 22.9k
5
votes
Why are goodwill impairments on the statement of cash-flows of GE?
Goodwill is essentially the additional intangible value of an acquired asset. At some point GE bought something for $100 when the book value was only $90, as a result (to balance the accounting) a $...
- 49.1k
5
votes
Someone wants to give me lots of money
Signs it's a scam:
1) They've never met you and yet trust you to handle nearly a million US dollars worth of their funds. I don't know about you, but if I had that money, I would not be trusting a ...
- 455
5
votes
Accepted
Are shareholders and tax collectors shown the same financial statements?
Generally the reports are going to be different. Although there is certainly some room for companies to intentionally account for things in ways that boost shareholder profits and minimize taxes, ...
- 28.3k
5
votes
Accepted
Cash basis vs accrual basis accounting
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/accrual-accounting.asp
Accrual accounting means revenue and expenses are recognized and recorded when they occur, while cash basis accounting means these ...
- 50.8k
5
votes
Accepted
Why does eBay's 2018 Form 10-K filing show a different net revenue for 2018 than in its 2020 filing?
The revenue was adjusted because of discontinued operations:
In 2019, eBay sold its StubHub business.
In 2020, eBay sold its Classifieds business.
2018 revenue (in billions)
StubHub
1.083
...
- 17.2k
5
votes
Accepted
Must all US public companies have an investor relations website?
Short answer: no.
I am pretty darn sure that the only requirements to be a publicly traded company is that said company meets all the standards to be public traded and files the necessary forms ...
- 3,244
4
votes
Accepted
eBay Revenue Statement Discrepancy
See the footnotes. They sold PayPal. They removed the sales and expenses related to PayPal from their consolidated statements. Otherwise it would look like sales dropped from year x to year y.
- 145k
4
votes
Accepted
How to find a public company's balance sheet and income statement?
The balance sheet and income statements are located in the 10-K and 10-Q filings for all publicly traded companies. It will be Item 8.
- 10.2k
4
votes
Accepted
Profit and loss statement without any sales
Inventory costs would go into the Inventory account; which is not on the P&L, it is a balance sheet account. Once a sale is made, the cost of that sale is posted to Cost of Sales and offset ...
- 243
4
votes
How to convert foreign financial statements to USD?
Assuming you're objective is valuing the company ("want to do DCF"), the question is why? If it's for an investment, I don't see why you don't work in CAD, i.e., CAD cash flows and CAD ...
- 161
4
votes
Accepted
Why can't ROE Return on Equity of companies we invest in be 100% or 200% but usually less than 40%?
You have a faulty premise.
Yahoo Screener lists 331 stocks (with some duplication due to different share classes and locations) with an ROE of over 1,000%, and 2,184 with a ROE of over 100%. So it's ...
- 142k
4
votes
Can long-term assets ruin the balance in the balance-sheet?
Focusing on the balance sheet, as you requested, an orderly decrease in value of the asset (depreciation) is handled within the Assets section:
... accumulated depreciation is a contra-asset account, ...
4
votes
Accepted
Is Nike paying income taxes as news media reports?
Income Tax Expense is not just Federal - it's any income tax, which for Nike includes State and Foreign taxes. If you look at Note 9 of the report you'll see a breakdown in which their federal income ...
- 142k
4
votes
Accepted
Why do why many companies show Trailing Twelve Months (TTM) rather than a YTD or Quarter to Quarter?
Many businesses are cyclical, meaning that they have one (or two) quarters that comprise more than their fair share of activity. For example, Discretionary Consumer Retailers (like electronics) tend ...
- 142k
4
votes
Accepted
The pitfall of high ROE
how should I treat the ROE when I analyze the financial statements?
Critically.
No one metric can be used in a vacuum. One tenet of fundamental analysis is, once you find an unusual metric, to better ...
- 142k
4
votes
Accepted
What does "TEOP BE Branch" mean?
It's shorthand for "Takeaway Europe Operations Belgium Branch". This was a transaction in the Takeaway food delivery app.
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible