Airlines Continue to Struggle with Boeing 737 Max Groundings

Southwest Airlines and American Airlines are warning of the increased financial toll of the extended Boeing 737 MAX groundings as they try to operate with smaller fleets.Southwest said operating income was $175 million lower in the second quarter due to the grounding, while American Airlines Grou...

By Lauren Muskett • July 25, 2019

Snap Stock Rally Continues on Strong Q2 Results

Snap shares jumped for a second straight day on Wednesday as investors welcomed quarterly results — including a big increase in daily active users — that indicated its turnaround effort is picking up steam.The parent of the Snapchat app reported a smaller-than-expected loss for the second quarter...

By Matthew Heller • July 24, 2019

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

Tax Reform Spurs Major Unintended Consequence

If there’s one thing generally agreed about the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, it’s that the legislation engendered great expectations.The TCJA sharply reduced the U.S. corporate tax rate, sped depreciation deductions, and greatly lowered the cost of repatriating vast undistributed earnings of foreign sub...

By David McCann • July 24, 2019

Hasbro Shares Leap on Big Sales, Earnings Beats

Hasbro shares jumped to an all-time high on Tuesday after the toy maker easily beat sales and earnings estimates amid strong sales of its Avengers toys and Magic: The Gathering game.For the second quarter, Hasbro’s revenue rose 9% to $984.5 million, well above analysts’ estimate of $956.7 million...

By Matthew Heller • July 24, 2019

PetMed Earnings Dip as Online Competition Bites

PetMed Express badly missed quarterly earnings estimates as online competition and pricing pressures hurt the pet pharmacy’s sales and profits.For the first quarter, PetMed said Monday it earned $5.3 million, or $0.26 per share — down from $12.6 million, or $0.62 per share. a year ago — as sales ...

By Matthew Heller • July 23, 2019

CFOs and the Digital Labor Revolution

As multinational companies strive to compete in an ever-changing environment, chief financial officers (CFOs) are playing an increasingly important role. They are expected to reduce costs, provide more insights to the business, and drive profitable growth.But many CFOs have maxed out their saving...

By Gerry Marletta • July 23, 2019

Think Like a Venture Capitalist

As disruptive technologies upend operating models, displace existing products and services and unlock new opportunities, a company’s growth and earnings have never been more uncertain. Business leaders are now under pressure to make bigger bets on innovation and execute against them.However, whil...

By Gerry Marletta • July 23, 2019

Advanced Analytics and the CFO

How should the finance function engage with new technologies and work with business partners to revolutionize enterprise performance management?A Harvard Business Review Analytic Services whitepaper sponsored by KPMG LLPToday, a renewed wave of digital transformation, including advanced analytics...

By Gerry Marletta • July 23, 2019

The 12 Key Principles of Financial Planning and Analysis

Few processes within a CFO’s purview have as much potential to create or destroy value as financial planning and analysis, stresses a new report from the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA).Even if a company has the right strategy, if the budget does not reflect those priorities and properl...

By David McCann • July 22, 2019

Equifax to Pay Up to $700 Million Over 2017 Hack

Equifax agreed to pay $575 million, and possibly as much as $700 million, over its 2017 hacking incident.The settlement includes $300 million for a fund to provide restitution to consumers harmed by the hack, a payment of $175 million to 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and p...

By Lauren Muskett • July 22, 2019

American Express Beats Q2 Earnings Estimates

On Friday, American Express reported second-quarter income of $1.8 billion, up 9% from $1.6 billion a year ago, and diluted earnings per share was $2.07, up 13% from $1.84 per share a year ago.Second-quarter consolidated total revenues net of interest expense were $10.8 billion, up 8% from $10 bi...

By Lauren Muskett • July 19, 2019

Boeing to Take $4.9B Charge for MAX Grounding

Boeing is heading for the largest quarterly loss in its history due to a huge earnings hit from the grounding of its 737 MAX jets.Ahead of next week’s second-quarter earnings report, the company announced Thursday it will take a $4.9 billion after-tax accounting charge “in connection with an esti...

By Matthew Heller • July 19, 2019

SAP Software Sales Dip in Asia Amid Trade Feud

SAP posted a 40% jump in cloud revenue on Thursday but its shares dipped as the U.S.-China trade conflict dampened software license sales in the Asia region.For the second quarter, the enterprise software giant said total revenue increased 11% to 6.6 billion euros, with revenue from the cloud seg...

By Matthew Heller • July 18, 2019

EU Fines Qualcomm for ‘Predatory Pricing’

European regulators fined chipmaker Qualcomm $271 million after a long-running antitrust investigation into the company using predatory pricing about a decade ago.The fine represents 1.27% of the company’s global revenue for 2018. Qualcomm was also ordered not to engage in abusive pricing practic...

By Lauren Muskett • July 18, 2019

EBay Shares Rise After Earnings Beat

EBay outperformed its second-quarter projections with revenues of $2.7 billion. Shares rose 7% in extended trading, the global online retailer announced on Wednesday.This is an increase of 2% on an as-reported basis and 4% on a foreign exchange neutral basis, primarily driven by gross merchandise...

By Lauren Muskett • July 18, 2019

Netflix Posts First-Ever Drop in U.S. Subscribers

Netflix shares plunged in extended trading Wednesday after the streaming giant reported its first-ever decline in U.S. subscribers and significantly lower-than-expected growth overseas.According to The New York Times, “The second quarter is typically Netflix’s weakest time of year, but its perfor...

By Matthew Heller • July 18, 2019

United Airlines Profit Rises 54% to $1.05 Billion

United Airlines posted quarterly earnings that beat estimates on strong domestic travel demand and the second-largest U.S. carrier raised the low end of its full-year guidance.United’s second-quarter net income jumped 54% to $1.05 billion even though it was forced to cancel flights due to the gro...

By Matthew Heller • July 17, 2019

FASB Gives Private Companies Breathing Room on Lease Accounting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to propose delaying the effective date of some of its major accounting standards, including ASC 842, Lease Accounting, for privately held companies, nonprofits, and small reporting companies.The delay means those organization...

By Vincent Ryan • July 17, 2019

Ebix Agrees to Buy Yatra

Atlanta-based software company Ebix has reached an agreement to acquire Indian online travel booking company Yatra Online through a merger with an estimated enterprise value of $337.8 million.Under the terms of the deal, each ordinary share of Yatra would be worth 0.005 shares of a new class of p...

By Lauren Muskett • July 17, 2019

CFOs Remain Cautious With Corporate Cash

Credit may be bountiful and cheap, but finance chiefs refuse to play fast and loose with the cash on their balance sheets or spend big on capital investments that will deplete liquidity.Restraint characterized the strategies for cash deployments and short-term investments for the bulk of 2018 and...

By Vincent Ryan • July 17, 2019

Wells Fargo Profit Jumps 20%, Beats Estimates

Wells Fargo beat quarterly earnings estimates but its stock fell as the bank reported a decline in net interest income and warned that 2019 expenses would be at the high end of its target.For the second quarter, Wells Fargo, which has been seeking to rebound from its fake-accounts scandal, earned...

By Matthew Heller • July 16, 2019

Goodwill Impairment Testing: Time to Revisit?

As far back as the spring of 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board was telling CFO that it planned to take another look at goodwill accounting for public companies. At the time, FASB had issued its proposal to change the guidance for goodwill impairment, which later was adopted.The next ...

By Vincent Ryan • July 12, 2019

Metric of the Month: Total Cost to ‘Manage Taxes’

Taxes are a complicated area of business that often requires carefully designed strategy and planning. In addition to income taxes, an organization has to be mindful of regulations involving property taxes, sales and use taxes, and excise taxes, among others. The situation is even more complicate...

By Perry D. Wiggins • July 9, 2019

Calculate the Real Cost of Catastrophe

If we have one job as CFOs, it’s protecting the value of our companies. One of the most insidious threats to corporate value is sudden disruption from events like fire, hurricane, flood, earthquake, or cyberattack — disruption that is ostensibly insured. The problem is, there’s always a portion o...

By Vincent Ryan • July 9, 2019

U.S. Proposes $4B More European Tariffs Over Aircraft Subsidies

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) proposed a list of products that could be hit with new tariffs, as part of a long-running dispute with the European Union over aircraft subsidies.The products, which include olives, Italian cheese, and Scotch whiskey, could be worth $4 billion. They would be i...

By Lauren Muskett • July 2, 2019