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Comment by lloyd-christmas | Hacker News Reader

> Not according to GAAP rules...

Not "rules" but "guidelines". Or quite literally, "principles".

"... stock soars"

The thing is that GAAP vs Non-GAAP is pretty irrelevant unless they regularly change how they do it. If a company reports non-GAAP earnings every quarter with the same methodology, it's effectively the same as reporting GAAP. People on wall street aren't dumb. There is a reason the reaction was positive.

Food for thought, here are GAAP vs non-GAAP reportings for the S&P 500 companies: http://www.auditanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/1...

For the non-finance people, this is like using snake case in a camel case language or vice versa. Sure, it's an annoyance the first time you look at the project. As long as it's consistent between files, it's not really worth withdrawing from your "things I can bitch about at the dinner table" account.

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Zerohedge seems to be a bit sensationalist:)

- 1 YEAR AGO, as GAAP: Microsoft reported a $2000 millions in losses

- TODAY, as GAAP: Microsoft reported $3000 millions in profits

YET the story is spun negatively in terms of GAAP, and people will follow that negativity despite having the data literally in their faces!

In this case, what wall street takes into account is Microsoft progress in the cloud, how many physical and virtual widgets they are selling and cost's control as well as currency fluctuations, taxes, etc...

I am shocked that an investing website that uses a quote from Fight Club atop all its pages is sensationalist. Absolutely, completely shocked.

I always prefer GAAP reporting; this gives a common parlance and common description when examining multiple company sheets. Non-GAAP may capture aspects better, but GAAP gives me more context.

I'm of the opposite opinion. While I worked as an equities trader/financial analyst, we didn't move our investments around within an industry all that frequently. When buying, we'd look for a strong sector and then the strong companies within that sector. That's the only major point at which we'd compare between companies within an industry. Once invested, you're not really comparing company vs. company, you're comparing companies against themselves over time in order to evaluate the sector performance. Basically, you have JPM-Q1 vs. JPM-Q2 much more frequently than JPM-Q1 vs. GS-Q1. Non-GAAP reportings typically serve exactly that purpose. It always just comes down to your use-case.

it's only "effectively the same" when you're comparing between different years at the same company. it's absolutely not the same when you're comparing different companies.

I thought that's what I implied. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

This belief that Wall Street is always correct is exactly what caused the previous economic crash. Speculators don't care about a correct investment decision is about riding the trends. If people are buying, it doesn't matter if you don't agree .. you have to buy as well it works as a hedge.

btw, don't say " for the non-finance people " -> it's very arrogant and bankers are already hated as it is.

There's a lot more to finance than "evil bankers"

> This belief that Wall Street is always correct is exactly what caused the previous economic crash.

This is the easy over-simplification that makes for a convenient blame-game.

> Speculators don't care about a correct investment decision is about riding the trends

Speculators != Investors.

> If people are buying, it doesn't matter if you don't agree .. you have to buy as well it works as a hedge.

No. If other people are buying, you can sit there and do absolutely nothing.

> btw, don't say " for the non-finance people"

No. I'll go ahead and target my explanations to the exact people who may not understand the topic being discussed. If you feel like you're being looked down upon, that's your insecurity, not my problem.

I forgot Microsoft actions are beyond criticism. Let's buy shares.

That's not even remotely what he's saying. Come on dude.

Hacker News how far are you sinking ? Is it time to give up on you ?

You can see it's the same person with an alternate login. Social media is slowly becoming the biggest confirmation bias factory, facts became totally irrelevant in discussions.

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