On our homepage, www.calcbench.com, we monitor some metrics on a near real-time basis. That is to say, as soon as we get new data, it goes into the analysis. We track year over year Revenues (up 3.3%), Cash (up 4.9%) and **gasp** Net Income (DOWN 19%).
Surely this Net Income drop is data error right?
WRONG!
It is correct. Here is why. We looked at the worst offenders, those with the largest drops in Net Income. Here they are
As you can see, over 46 Billion dollars were lost due to a combination of asset markdowns, impairments and pension expenses! Makes you wonder what else is out there.