سؤال قراءة ستيب محلول — فهم التفاصيل (تدريب 5698)

(1) According to a recent study in The Analyst's Accounting Observer, 90 percent of companies in the Standard Poor's 500-stock index reported nonstandard accounting results last year, up from 72 percent in 2009. (2) Regulations still require corporations to report their financial results under accounting rules. But companies often steer investors instead to massaged calculations that produce a better outcome. (3) Among 380 companies that were in existence both last year and in 2009, the study showed net income was up 6.6 percent in 2015 compared with the previous year when non-standard accounting was used. (4) However, under generally accepted accounting principles, net income at the same 380 companies in 2015 actually declined almost 11 percent from 2014. (5) Another striking fact: Thirty companies in the study generated losses under accounting rules in 2015 but magically produced profits when they did the math their own way. Most were in the energy sector, which has been devastated by plummeting oil prices, but health care companies and information technology businesses were also in this group. (6) How can a company turn losses into profits? By excluding some of its costs of doing business. Among the more common expenses that companies remove from their calculations are restructuring and acquisition costs, stock-based compensation and write-downs of impaired assets.