You're assuming that the only way for a company to not post profits is for all its margins to be flat-to-negative. If the company has high operating margins an

You're assuming that the only way for a company to not post profits is for all its margins to be flat-to-negative. If the company has high operating margins and high growth then it makes sense to take those profits and reinvest in capital and R&D to make the company bigger. That is the definition of an efficient economic machine builds itself, and the way to a very good stock for the investor. That is different from the pathological stock with flat operating margins which is growing on debt, spending $1 to make less than $1 at the margins and will only consume itself as it grows. And learning to tell the difference between those two requires learning to read 10-K's, you can't just look at the net earnings bottom line.