Quality Of Earnings For Major Corporations

When analysts question a firm’s earnings quality, it raises concerns regarding under or over aggressive accounting practices that may be allowing the firm to manipulate the earnings. Earnings quality is defined as the strength of the current earnings in being used to predict future earnings and cash flows. Since earning quality is indicative of future performance, analysts are more likely to address issues that have substantial impact on the earnings quality. An issue arises when the nature of the earnings is questioned. While permanent earnings are part of normal operations, any irregular, one time earnings can skew the earnings, making the firm look more profitable than it is. This is due to the inability to recreate similar one-time transactions that will give rise to such numbers. Investors prefer predictable

Understandably, there are a variety of ways in which a company can manage their earnings, and if accomplished successfully, the results can be highly profitable. Not all techniques are fraudulent, as effective earnings management is considered good for business and shareholders. Income smoothing is a specific example of permissible earnings management that involves controlling fluctuations in net income to make earnings less variable over a given period of time (Goel & Thakor, 2003). Smoothing is acceptable as long as it adheres to the restrictions of U.S. GAAP, which maintains that all revenues and expenses are accounted for in a defined fashion. There are a lot of incentives in figuring how to effectively smooth income, as substantial value can be created through the successful arrangement of financial transactions. Management is able to make more intelligent decisions with regards to the future of the firm if the earnings are able to match the forecasts. One instance this is seen is when management is faced with the decision to smooth total income or

Such an intense focus has been placed on quarterly earnings as an indication of a company’s success by everyone from analysts to executives that ethics have for the most part been thrown out the window, sacrificed to the all important number, i.e. earnings per share. This is the theory in Alex Berenson’s book “The Number: How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America.” This number has become part of a game to be played, a figure to be manipulated – beat the number and Wall Street all but throws a parade, miss it and a company’s stock may be abandoned. Take into account the incentives that executives have to beat the number and one can find plenty of reasons to manage earnings.

SUMMARY OF STUDY OBJECTIVES 1Identify the sections of a classified balance sheet. In a classified balance sheet, companies classify assets as current assets; long-term investments; property, plant, and equipment; and intangibles. They classify liabilities as either current or long-term. A stockholders' equity section shows common stock and retained earnings. 2Identify and compute ratios for analyzing a company's profitability. Profitability ratios, such as earnings per share (EPS), measure aspects of the operating success of a company for a given period of time. 3Explain the relationship between a retained earnings statement

The standard statements focus on accounting income for the entire corporation, not cash flows, and the two can be quite different during any given accounting period. However, for valuation purposes we need to discount cash flows, not accounting income. Moreover, since many firms have a number of separate divisions, and since division managers should be compensated on their divisions' performance, not that of the entire firm, information that focuses on the divisions is needed. These factors have led to the development of information that

Quality of reported financial information is a critical element in evaluating financial statement data. The higher the quality of financial reporting, the more useful the information is for business decision making.

Companies often try to keep accounting earnings growing at a relatively steady pace in an effort to avoid large swings in earnings from period to period. They also try to manage earnings targets. Reflect on these practices and discuss the following in your discussion post.

The most important thing to any company’s stakeholders is high-quality reporting of its financial statements. Investors, for instance, need to know the truth about a company in order to make an informed decision on whether to make private investment, buy stock or bonds. However, for stakeholders to get the truth about a company, they need to read and understand management’s discussion and analysis, the president’s letter, the notes, as well as the financial statements. Conversely, financial statements must be accompanied with disclosures to prevent them from misleading the stakeholders.

This Income Statement also known as the Earnings Statements or statement of operation, is one of the four Financial Statement used by accountants, business owner’s, and investors. The Income Statement provides a detailed look into how profitable a business has been over a designated period of time.

The general accepted accounting principles (GAAP) numbers ensure a level of consistency but they do not take into consideration the particularities of each firm, or at least of each industry. Collins et al. (1997) observed a decline in the value relevance of GAAP earnings, since 1953, and even though research on non-GAAP numbers starts and focuses around the late 1990s, in 1973 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a warning for the non-GAAP measures (Accounting Series Release No 142, SEC 1973).

I included some information of earnings management first. Earnings management is managers’ accounting choices. Managers may use different accounting techniques to create some opportunities within the boundary of GAAP, so that they can make financial statements look better. I stated the top 5 techniques of earnings management and relevant examples:

Accounting information can be useful in order to help predict future performance in the short and long term. It is important to note however that accounting information including accounting ratios show a company’s performance at a period in time. It is historical data. Trends can be identified by comparing data in sequential periods and future forecasts can be determined using historical data. There is no evidence or proof however, that these patterns will predict the future at a level of complete certainty. In my opinion, it would be hard to argue that decreasing profits over an extended period of time, or deteriorating liquid assets and increasing long term debt will have a

Discuss Measures That may be used to asses the quality of a firms reported earnings.

Ball, R / Shivakumar L. (2005): Earnings quality in UK private firms: comparative loss recognition timeliness, Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 39, 2005, pp. 83–128.

Nowadays, as our economy is facing possible everyday crises, managers undergo an increasing pressure in order to keep their company 's earnings stable. Shareholders and analysts expect companies to meet forecasted goals and not to deviate from these. Especially, reliable companies are to report positive results and shall not present any 'surprises '. Managers therefore often turn to their accounting departments for help, whose job it then is to improve the bottom line by changing the information shown in financial