Starbucks Sales Top $6B But Shares Drop 2%

Starbucks’ top-line quarterly results beat analysts’ estimates but its shares fell more than 2% in extended trading amid investor concerns over the pace of its U.S. sales growth.For the second quarter, the coffee giant reported Thursday that global same-store sales rose 2%, with comp sales up 2% ...

By Matthew Heller • April 26, 2018

New PCAOB Rule Sways Investor Decisions

Since January of last year, a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board regulation has required U.S. companies to disclose the engagement partner of their auditing firm. Has it benefited investors, as its proponents claimed it would? Or has it been of negligible value, as many accounting professi...

By David McCann • April 26, 2018

Twitter Posts Second Straight Quarterly Profit

Twitter may be making a habit of being profitable.Hard on the heels of turning its first profit in the last three months of 2017, the social network repeated the performance in this year’s first quarter as revenue was boosted by growth in international markets.Twitter’s adjusted earnings came in ...

By Matthew Heller • April 26, 2018

3M Shares Tumble on Lowered 2018 Guidance

3M’s stock matched its biggest single-day decline in more than nine years after the industrial and consumer products maker trimmed its full-year guidance ranges for profit and revenue.3M on Tuesday posted better-than-expected revenue for the first quarter and earnings that were in line with estim...

By Matthew Heller • April 25, 2018

SAP Cloud Sales Top 1B Euros for First Time

SAP’s cloud computing business topped 1 billion euros in quarterly revenue for the first time as the German software giant positions itself to challenge Salesforce in the customer relationship management (CRM) market.SAP reported Tuesday that cloud subscriptions and support revenue grew 18% in th...

By Matthew Heller • April 24, 2018

Whirlpool Profit Sags on Raw Materials Inflation

Whirlpool’s quarterly sales and earnings missed analysts’ estimates and the appliance maker said it expects continued pressure this year from slower revenue growth and higher raw materials costs.For the first quarter, Whirlpool reported net income of $94 million, or $1.30 a share, compared with $...

By Matthew Heller • April 24, 2018

World Bank Approves $13B Paid-in Capital Hike

Shareholders of the World Bank have approved the lender’s first capital hike since 2010, agreeing to a $13 billion paid-in capital increase that more than doubles its lending capacity.The capital increase, which was initially opposed by the U.S., will add $7.5 billion paid-in capital for the Worl...

By Matthew Heller • April 23, 2018

Toys R Us Collapse Weighs on Hasbro Results

Shares of Hasbro rallied on Monday as the toy maker assured Wall Street that the worst of the effects of the Toys R Us liquidation would be over by this year’s holiday season.The stock dipped almost 8% in pre-market trading but was up more than 3% at $85.36 later in the day. Hasbro reported a 16%...

By Matthew Heller • April 23, 2018

Usage of Variance Analysis Is, Well, Variable

Variance analysis, well-recognized as a valuable tool for business review and planning, examines deviations in operating margin and other financial metrics relative to a budget or prior time period.Such analysis breaks down the deviations into various decision-based drivers of profitability (e.g....

By Thomas E. Conine Jr. and Michael B. McDonald IV • April 23, 2018

Big Drop in Power Profit Tempers GE’s Q1 Beat

General Electric reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and reaffirmed its full-year guidance but analysts remained skeptical about its turnaround strategy amid a continuing slump in its power business.GE’s earnings beat might have seemed a cause for optimism after some dire recent quar...

By Matthew Heller • April 23, 2018

IBM Beats Q1 Estimates But Stock Dives 5.7%

IBM delivered a second straight quarter of higher revenue but a slowdown in the growth of its “strategic imperatives” segment fueled investor doubts over its turnaround strategy.For the first quarter, the company reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.45 a share on revenue of $19.07 billion, ...

By Matthew Heller • April 18, 2018

UnitedHealth Beats Estimates Despite Flu Costs

UnitedHealth Group posted better-than-expected quarterly results on Tuesday that benefited from its ability to control medical costs and the strong performance of its Optum health services business.The nation’s largest health insurer said net earnings for the first quarter rose to $2.84 billion, ...

By Matthew Heller • April 17, 2018

Tax Managers Forecast Tax Windfall Allocation

Various reports have appeared suggesting what U.S. companies will do with the extra cash they’ll be pocketing courtesy of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). But here’s one from a unique perspective: that of corporate tax executives themselves.Within that population, it’s a nearly unanimous expecta...

By David McCann • April 17, 2018

How Unclear Tax Footnotes Can Create Value

Transparency in financial statements has few, if any, public detractors. For their part, though, investors appear to like some things more than transparency — like difficult-to-read tax footnotes.Investors are, of course, in the game to make money. According to new research, they think they’ll ma...

By David McCann • April 17, 2018

CFO One Day, Classroom Instructor the Next

When finance chief Robert Rostan senses burnout is around the corner, he has a built-in escape hatch: the classroom.Robert Rostan Rostan is CFO of Training the Street, a company that provides financial education for employees of banks, primarily, but also law, accounting, private equity, and asse...

By David McCann • April 16, 2018

CFO Optimism Is Sky High, But Also At Risk

The trifecta of a solid U.S. economy, cheap capital, and the passage of tax reform is providing plenty of reason for CFO optimism.Sandy Cockrell III But even with blue skies and forecasts calling for more sunshine, finance chiefs should be prepared for challenges that could get in the way of exec...

By Sandy Cockrell III • April 16, 2018

Wells Fargo Warns of Possible $1B Settlement

Wells Fargo on Friday reported a 5.5% jump in quarterly profit but warned the results may need to be revised due to a possible settlement with federal regulators.The scandal-plagued bank said it earned $5.94 billion, or $1.12 per share, in the first quarter, compared to $5.63 billion, or $1.03 pe...

By Matthew Heller • April 13, 2018

U.S. Budget Deficit Widens to $208B in March

The U.S. budget deficit increased more than $32 billion, or 18.4%, in March from a year ago, reflecting in part lower revenues due to the new tax law.The Treasury Department reported on Wednesday that the U.S. government had a $208.7 billion budget shortfall last month, compared to a deficit of $...

By Matthew Heller • April 12, 2018

Pension-Plan Sponsors Forgo Savings

Many pension-plan sponsors are making large voluntary contributions to their plans this year. Pension-funding rules allow such contributions to be retroactively recorded for 2017 if they’re made by Sept. 15.The payments are tax deductible, of course, and because of the reduced corporate income ta...

By David McCann • April 12, 2018

How to Avoid Overspending on AI

Artificial intelligence is the darling of the moment for the technology press and the corporate meme-stream. So much so, it’s forcing some CFOs into tough discussions with executive teams that are overly anxious to gamble with current assets in hopes of gaining future competitive advantages.Micha...

By Michael Hu • April 10, 2018

Tupperware Shares Fall 6.7% on Lower Outlook

Tupperware Brands shares tumbled in after-hours trading after the company downgraded its first-quarter outlook due, in part, to problems at a now closed factory in France.The food storage specialist said Monday it expected revenue for the first quarter of 2018 to decline 2% versus the prior year,...

By Matthew Heller • April 10, 2018

Email Compromise Scams Show No Signs of Abating

Forged checks or stolen corporate cards are still the most popular means of attack by payment scammers, but another method — email compromise — is rising in popularity.Email compromise scams are now the tip of the spear driving a rise in payments fraud activity, according to a report released on ...

By Vincent Ryan • April 10, 2018

Short Treasury Bonds to Soak Up Capital Losses

Companies often incur capital losses they can’t deduct. Such losses are deductible only against capital gains, and they can be carried back only three years and forward just five years, when they expire worthless.Thomas Boczar So, in many cases companies don’t expect to generate sufficient gains ...

By Jeff Markowski and Thomas Boczar • April 9, 2018

GE Investors Urged to Dump KPMG as Auditor

Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services has urged General Electric shareholders to force a change in the company’s longtime auditor, questioning KPMG’s expertise amid an investigation of GE’s accounting practices.GE has asked shareholders to endorse KPMG as its auditor for another ...

By Matthew Heller • April 6, 2018

Four Ways Forecasting Goes Wrong

“Doc, about the future…”“No! Marty! We’ve already agreed that having information about the future can be extremely dangerous.”What Doc Brown doesn’t know about running a business is a lot. While Back to the Future may warn of an altered course of history, in real life having information about the...

By Ashish Pareek • April 5, 2018