PayPal Crushes Estimates, Posts 25% Sales Gain

PayPal posted its best quarter as a public company amid an acceleration in the use of digital payments that it believes is irreversible.PayPal executives said the company’s second-quarter results indicate the COVID-19 pandemic has moved society a crucial step closer toward the “death of cash,” wi...

By Matthew Heller • July 30, 2020

GM Posts $806M Loss, 47% Drop in Sales

General Motors swung to a big loss but aggressive cost-cutting and a large cash hoard helped cushion the blow from the coronavirus pandemic and the automaker sees stronger sales ahead with its plants now back in production.GM lost eight of 13 weeks of production in the second quarter due to virus...

By Matthew Heller • July 29, 2020

GE Beats Revenue Estimates, Reports Q2 Loss

General Electric reported revenue of $17.7 billion for the second quarter, slightly beating analyst estimates, but the company recorded a loss of 15 cents per share.Analysts had expected a loss of 10 cents per share, according to a survey by Refinitiv.“Our earnings performance was impacted by the...

By Lauren Muskett • July 29, 2020

Visa Profit Drops 23% as Card Spending Slows

Visa reported that quarterly profit fell 23% amid a decline in payments activity resulting from coronavirus-related shutdowns.For the third quarter, Visa’s net income dropped to $2.37 billion, or $1.07 per Class A share, from $3.10 billion, or $1.37 per Class A share, a year earlier. Net revenue ...

By Matthew Heller • July 29, 2020

Harley-Davidson U.S. Sales Plunge 27% in Q2

Harley-Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz doubled down on his “Rewire” turnaround plan as the company reported its steepest decline in U.S. retail sales in at least six years.Zeitz’s plan, which he unveiled in April, is intended to revive an iconic brand that has been struggling for years to grow sales be...

By Matthew Heller • July 28, 2020

Centrica Sells North American Energy Unit to NRG

U.K.-based Centrica has reached an agreement to sell Direct Energy, its North American subsidiary, to NRG Energy for $3.63 billion.Centrica, which announced the sale along with its half-year earnings, said the deal represents an enterprise value of 7.9 times its 2019 underlying adjusted EBITDA.“W...

By Lauren Muskett • July 27, 2020

Mattel Beats Estimates But Sales Drop 15%

Mattel reported sales declines across all of its product categories even though coronavirus shutdowns have boosted the toy industry as a whole.For the second quarter, Mattel’s net toy sales declined nearly 15% to $732.1 million as the economic impact of the health crisis hammered demand in overse...

By Matthew Heller • July 24, 2020

Reduced T&E Spending Continues to Hit AmEx

American Express reported a surprise quarterly profit on Friday but the coronavirus crisis continued to weigh on its transaction volumes, particularly in the crucial travel and entertainment sector.For the second quarter, AmEx’s net income fell 85% to $257 million, or 29 cents per share, beating ...

By Matthew Heller • July 24, 2020

Tesla’s Emission Credits Fuel $104 Million Profit

Tesla delivered a fourth straight quarter of profitability as reduced operating expenses and an increase in regulatory credit revenue helped offset a decline in sales due to the coronavirus pandemic.Tesla’s second-quarter net income of $104 million came despite what CEO Elon Musk called “tremendo...

By Matthew Heller • July 23, 2020

Snap User Growth Rises But Misses Forecast

The owner of Snapchat reported better-than-expected quarterly results but slowing user and revenue growth appeared to weigh on investors.Snap’s revenue, which comes from advertising sales, rose 17% to $454.2 million in the second quarter, beating estimates of $439.1 million but declining sharply ...

By Matthew Heller • July 22, 2020

LinkedIn to Cut 6% of Global Workforce

Microsoft-owned career networking platform LinkedIn said it is cutting about 6% of its workforce, or 960 jobs, citing the disastrous effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the hiring market.In a note to employees, chief executive officer Ryan Roslansky said the cuts were being made across the company’...

By Lauren Muskett • July 21, 2020

IBM Beats Q2 Estimates, Sees Cloud Growth

IBM reported a 5.4% decline in quarterly revenue but its stock jumped in after-hours trading Monday amid optimism that its push into cloud computing may finally be paying off.According to Reuters, IBM’s cloud strategy may be getting a boost as “large corporations accelerate their digital shift du...

By Matthew Heller • July 21, 2020

Will There Be a Second Round of Paycheck Protection Loans?

Around the country, small businesses are still struggling to survive, despite many states partially reopening. And a bloom of coronavirus cases nationwide ensures that the economic recovery will take a longer time than some economists thought.Therefore, when U.S. lawmakers return to Washington th...

By Vincent Ryan • July 20, 2020

Ally Financial’s Profit Drops by More Than Half

Ally Financial reported a 58% drop in quarterly earnings as its core auto lending business took a hit from stay-at-home orders that kept consumers away from dealerships.For the second quarter, the 17th-largest U.S. bank’s net income fell to $241 million from $582 million. Adjusted earnings declin...

By Matthew Heller • July 20, 2020

Netflix Adds 10 Million Subs But Stock Slides

Netflix reported a huge increase in subscribers but its shares fell sharply after it forecast lower-than-expected growth in the current quarter.The streaming giant added 10.1 million net subscribers in the second quarter, benefiting from stay-at-home orders that left people with few options for e...

By Matthew Heller • July 17, 2020

Goldman Crushes Estimates With $2.4B Profit

Goldman Sachs reported quarterly earnings Wednesday that crushed Wall Street estimates as the bank’s trading business benefited from market volatility caused by the coronavirus pandemic.For the second quarter, Goldman generated net earnings of $2.42 billion, or $6.26 a share, compared with analys...

By Matthew Heller • July 15, 2020

Apple Wins Appeal on $15B Irish Tax Bill

The General Court of the European Union has annulled a 2016 order that said the U.S. tech giant Apple owed Ireland $14.9 billion in taxes.The court ruled that the European Commission did not prove that the Irish government had given the company a tax advantage.“The Commission didn’t succeed in sh...

By Lauren Muskett • July 15, 2020

Wells Fargo Announces $2.4B Loss, Dividend Cut

Wells Fargo shares fell nearly 5% on Tuesday after the beleaguered bank reported a larger-than-expected quarterly loss and said it would slash its dividend.The poor second-quarter results “were driven by soaring expenses linked to Wells Fargo’s scandals and surging credit costs caused by the bank...

By Matthew Heller • July 14, 2020

Delta Reports Biggest Loss Since 2008

Delta Air Lines reported a $5.7 billion net loss in the second quarter, citing plummeting demand due to the COVID-19 crisis. It was Delta’s largest loss since early 2008.The company said demand was less than 30% of pre-pandemic levels. It has also reduced the number of flights it planned to add i...

By Lauren Muskett • July 14, 2020

How CFOs Can Push Past Fear to Resilience and Resurgence

As COVID-19 took hold of the global economy, most CFOs went straight into crisis management mode.  The focus was vigilant monitoring of cash balances and running multiple scenario plans to ensure adequate liquidity in the short term. Now, a few months into the pandemic and resulting economic unce...

By Dayton Kellenberger • July 10, 2020

Walgreens Swings to Loss as COVID Hits Sales

Walgreens Boots Alliance reported lower-than-expected quarterly earnings on Thursday as sales took a big hit from the coronavirus pandemic despite a 3% increase in U.S. same-store sales.The retailer said the pandemic had an adverse impact on sales in the third quarter of about $700 million to $75...

By Matthew Heller • July 9, 2020

Big Four Heading for Audit Shakeup in U.K.

The U.K. is moving closer to a far-reaching shakeup of the Big Four accounting firms that would separate their audit and consulting businesses after a series of high-profile audit failures.The Financial Reporting Council, the U.K. accounting watchdog, announced Monday it had asked the firms to ag...

By Matthew Heller • July 7, 2020

Berkshire Hathaway to Buy Dominion Energy

Berkshire Hathaway has reached an agreement to buy Dominion Energy’s natural gas transmission and storage business for $4 billion. Including debt, the deal has an enterprise value of approximately $9.7 billion, the companies said in a statement.Its Berkshire Hathaway’s first major deal since the ...

By Lauren Muskett • July 6, 2020

The Importance of Accounting Comparability

Accounting standard setters and regulators seek greater comparability in financial reporting. In fact, U.S. GAAP has been significantly evolving over the years, but accounting standards are inherently complex. And, the recent changes in U.S. GAAP actually introduced new analytical challenges for ...

By Vincent Ryan • July 6, 2020

FedEx Gets Boost From E-Commerce Surge

FedEx shares jumped in after-hours trading Tuesday after the logistics giant beat quarterly earnings estimates, reflecting a surge in deliveries to online shoppers under stay-at-home orders.For the fourth quarter, FedEx reported a loss of $334 million, or $1.28 a share, in the quarter, compared w...

By Matthew Heller • July 1, 2020