4 ms·

So many undefined acronyms. So little context. So many numbers thrown out for no apparent reason. He's clearly upset with something and thinks he has an impo

So many undefined acronyms. So little context. So many numbers thrown out for no apparent reason. He's clearly upset with something and thinks he has an important point to make. But he makes no attempt to explain what he's upset about or make that point in a way that anybody but him can parse. I'm going to cast my vote for the most poorly written HN submission yet this year.

18pfsmt 15y ago
I find your comment quite interesting because I'm so familiar with financial terms/ acronyms, and read earnings reports all the time. On the other hand, here on HN I am _constantly_ looking up terms (new to developing). Seekingalpha is a financially-focused site, so one should expect a fair amount of jargon. If you scroll down to the comments, you will not see anybody stating the author is talking nonsense. I think you might find it more interesting if you look up the terms with which you are not familiar like GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) or EPS (Earnings Per Share), He's pretty much quoting the SEC filings from CRM (Salesforce's ticker symbol) themselves.
- hessenwolf 15y ago
  I read financial times and bloomberg most days. No term goes undefined. I am constantly impressed by how they can slip in the explanations so smoothly, and that they never presume the audience is already familiar.
blrgeek 15y ago
I actually found this quite well reasoned and the acronyms are pretty common in any financial analysis. Must read for anyone investing in the market to see how companies cheat! tl;dr If Salesforce(ticker: CRM) is paying execs in stock, it should count as an expense and they have a loss this year. CRM is cheating by showing earnings based on non-standard accounting (leaving out stock compensation) when it suits them, while touting earnings based on standard accounting when it doesn't! GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles - stock compensation should be accounted as expense. non-GAAP - our own set of accounting principles, which we stick to every year. Allows us to 'leave out' stock compensation, increasing the earnings per share (EPS) while leaving out the dilution that takes place! Also note, they give stock based compensation of $117MM this year & expect to give out DOUBLE next year - $238MM! So on a non-GAAP basis next year if they double their earnings, on a GAAP basis they will still be only breakeven!
- ErrantX 15y ago
  This is how the submission should have started. :) Thanks, it now makes for a lot easier reading.
- jasonkester 15y ago
  Thanks for the translation. The thing that pushed my buttons about that article is that he could have included a single sentence at the beginning that brought his readers up to speed on what he was talking about. You've done an excellent job of doing just that. On the other hand, finding the context and definitions you gave would take maybe 10 minutes of Googling and tracking down other articles about the company in hopes of finding out what they're doing wrong. That's a lot to invest before I even get a chance to read the first sentence of this article. It's like you're sitting in your office sipping your morning coffee, when a disgruntled employee bursts in and launches off on a tirade starting with the words "And another thing..." Clearly he's been thinking a lot about this, possibly discussing it with other people, but he hasn't with me, his boss (or his reader in the case of the article). The correct response in these situations is along the lines of "Whoa, hang on a second. Let's take a step back and start at the beginning. Now, what is on your mind?" Keep that in mind when writing, and you'll write better. Even if you think your target audience is fully up to speed, spend a few words to make sure.
  - encoderer 15y ago
    To be fair, Seeking Alpha is a (great) Stock Market & Finance website. That would be like criticizing the CLANG at Google post that's currently on the front page because the average person that stumbled on it wouldn't have a clue what it all meant. The only problem was that it was submitted to HN, which is not a finance-oriented website.
    - jasonkester 15y ago
      Not true. I don't know anything about compilers or C++ in general, but I was able to read that entire CLANG post and understand what it was talking about. It's actually a good example of a technical article intended for a technical audience yet written to be understandable by a lay person.

18pfsmt 15y ago

I find your comment quite interesting because I'm so familiar with financial terms/ acronyms, and read earnings reports all the time. On the other hand, here on HN I am _constantly_ looking up terms (new to developing). Seekingalpha is a financially-focused site, so one should expect a fair amount of jargon. If you scroll down to the comments, you will not see anybody stating the author is talking nonsense. I think you might find it more interesting if you look up the terms with which you are not familiar like GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) or EPS (Earnings Per Share), He's pretty much quoting the SEC filings from CRM (Salesforce's ticker symbol) themselves.

hessenwolf 15y ago
I read financial times and bloomberg most days. No term goes undefined. I am constantly impressed by how they can slip in the explanations so smoothly, and that they never presume the audience is already familiar.

blrgeek 15y ago

I actually found this quite well reasoned and the acronyms are pretty common in any financial analysis. Must read for anyone investing in the market to see how companies cheat! tl;dr If Salesforce(ticker: CRM) is paying execs in stock, it should count as an expense and they have a loss this year. CRM is cheating by showing earnings based on non-standard accounting (leaving out stock compensation) when it suits them, while touting earnings based on standard accounting when it doesn't! GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles - stock compensation should be accounted as expense. non-GAAP - our own set of accounting principles, which we stick to every year. Allows us to 'leave out' stock compensation, increasing the earnings per share (EPS) while leaving out the dilution that takes place! Also note, they give stock based compensation of $117MM this year & expect to give out DOUBLE next year - $238MM! So on a non-GAAP basis next year if they double their earnings, on a GAAP basis they will still be only breakeven!

ErrantX 15y ago
This is how the submission should have started. :) Thanks, it now makes for a lot easier reading.
jasonkester 15y ago
Thanks for the translation. The thing that pushed my buttons about that article is that he could have included a single sentence at the beginning that brought his readers up to speed on what he was talking about. You've done an excellent job of doing just that. On the other hand, finding the context and definitions you gave would take maybe 10 minutes of Googling and tracking down other articles about the company in hopes of finding out what they're doing wrong. That's a lot to invest before I even get a chance to read the first sentence of this article. It's like you're sitting in your office sipping your morning coffee, when a disgruntled employee bursts in and launches off on a tirade starting with the words "And another thing..." Clearly he's been thinking a lot about this, possibly discussing it with other people, but he hasn't with me, his boss (or his reader in the case of the article). The correct response in these situations is along the lines of "Whoa, hang on a second. Let's take a step back and start at the beginning. Now, what is on your mind?" Keep that in mind when writing, and you'll write better. Even if you think your target audience is fully up to speed, spend a few words to make sure.
- encoderer 15y ago
  To be fair, Seeking Alpha is a (great) Stock Market & Finance website. That would be like criticizing the CLANG at Google post that's currently on the front page because the average person that stumbled on it wouldn't have a clue what it all meant. The only problem was that it was submitted to HN, which is not a finance-oriented website.
  - jasonkester 15y ago
    Not true. I don't know anything about compilers or C++ in general, but I was able to read that entire CLANG post and understand what it was talking about. It's actually a good example of a technical article intended for a technical audience yet written to be understandable by a lay person.