Under Armour Narrows Loss, Shares Dip 8%

Under Armour’s shares fell to a record low on Tuesday after the “athleisure” pioneer reported weak North American sales, downgraded its guidance and launched a restructuring plan.Under Armour, which has been facing increasing competition in the athletic wear market and criticism that its products...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 1, 2017

Would a Territorial Tax System Help Investors?

As corporate tax reform emerges as a national legislative priority, a key proposal by the Trump administration and others is to scrap the United States’ current worldwide system of taxation. In that system, income earned abroad by subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals is subject to federal taxes wh...

By David McCann • Aug. 1, 2017

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

GE Alum Brings Discipline to High-Growth Financial Firm

After 16 years at General Electric, Chris Capozzi was still a young man. That was because he’d joined the company upon graduating from Boston College, where he earned a degree in finance and management information systems.Chris Capozzi It was early 2015, and Capozzi’s career was fully flourishing...

By David McCann • July 28, 2017

Amazon Sales Jump 25% But Profits Disappoint

Amazon posted another big quarterly sales jump, with most of the growth coming from outside its traditional e-commerce business, but its continued high spending cut into the bottom line.Such ventures as logistics, Prime memberships and cloud computing powered Amazon’s second-quarter results, whic...

By Matthew Heller • July 28, 2017

Exxon Earnings Double But Miss Estimates

Exxon’s quarterly earnings doubled over the same period last year but missed analysts’ expectations due in part to a dip in oil and gas production.The company reported second-quarter net income of $3.35 billion, or 78 cents a share, compared to $1.7 billion, or 41 cents, a year earlier. Revenue f...

By Matthew Heller • July 28, 2017

GM Profit Drops 42% But EPS Beats Estimates

General Motors reported a 42% drop in profit for the second quarter, reflecting in part the sale of its European operations, but adjusted earnings beat analysts’ estimates.The No. 1 U.S. automaker said Wednesday it made a profit of $1.7 billion, down from last year’s record $2.9 billion profit as...

By Matthew Heller • July 27, 2017

Twitter Shares Dive on Static Monthly Usage

Twitter’s share price fell more than 14% on Thursday as the news that it failed to add any monthly users in the last quarter disappointed investors following a growth surge earlier in the year.For the second quarter, the company reported 328 monthly active users, exactly where usage was three mon...

By Matthew Heller • July 27, 2017

Chipotle Soothes Investors With Earnings Beat

Amid renewed concerns over food safety at its restaurants, Chipotle Mexican Grill reported it more than doubled earnings but its same-store sales growth missed Wall Street expectations.The restaurant chain was hit last week by reports of a norovirus outbreak at a store in Virginia and of vermin i...

By Matthew Heller • July 26, 2017

Crowe Horwath Censured Over China Audits

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has sanctioned Hong Kong-based audit firm Crowe Horwath CPA Limited for refusing to cooperate with the board’s investigation of the firm’s audits of a publicly-traded Chinese company.According to the PCAOB’s disciplinary order, the board’s Division of...

By Matthew Heller • July 26, 2017

Growth, Interrupted

Uncertainty about U.S. regulatory and trade policies is prompting some companies to put business expansion plans on hold, according to the second-quarter Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook survey.More than one-third of U.S. finance executives (36%) report that the level of uncer...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 26, 2017

Late Shift: The 2017 Working Capital Scorecard

The 2017 CFO/Hackett Group Working Capital ScorecardCash is the lifeblood of a company, so managing short-term assets and liabilities to a strong working capital position is one of the things a company has to be great at. After all, efficiently managing cash leads to higher liquidity and a reduct...

By Vincent Ryan • July 26, 2017

Alphabet Beats Estimates With 21% Sales Rise

Google-parent Alphabet Inc. reported a better-than-expected increases in revenue and profit but its cost of sales rose faster as it spent heavily to deliver mobile traffic to its search engine.For the second quarter, the company said late Monday it earned $5.01 per share on revenues of $26.06 bil...

By Matthew Heller • July 25, 2017

Caterpillar Earnings Beat Drives Stock up 5.9%

Caterpillar shares rose nearly 6% on Wednesday after the construction and mining giant reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and raised its outlook for the full fiscal year.For the second quarter, Caterpillar posted revenue of $11.33 billion, up 10% on the year-ago period, and net inco...

By Matthew Heller • July 25, 2017

Colgate Sales Sag Amid ‘Challenging’ Conditions

Colgate-Palmolive reported that net sales fell 0.5% in the second quarter and forecast a low-single digit increase for 2017 amid “challenging” market conditions.The consumer products giant said net sales dropped to $3.83 billion from $3.85 billion a year earlier, missing analysts’ estimates of $3...

By Matthew Heller • July 24, 2017

Landing the Megadeal: Seven Keys to Closing Big Sales That Make Money

It all started out so well. A long-time, valued customer of a networking company put out the word that it was planning a massive purchase of equipment. The supplier assembled a deal team, submitted a bid, and made the sale. But not at a profit. The customer loved the extra scope the supplier had ...

By Brian Selby, David Levitch, and Aditya Pande • July 24, 2017

Blackstone Misses Estimates, AUM Hits Record

Investment firm Blackstone Group reported a 36% increase in earnings but missed analysts’ estimates as credit investments were hit by a drop in commodity prices.Blackstone’s economic net income (ENI) — a key metric for U.S. private equity that accounts for unrealized investment gains or losses — ...

By Matthew Heller • July 21, 2017

GE Shares Sink 2.9% Despite Q2 Earnings Beat

In the last earnings statement of CEO Jeff Immelt’s 16-year tenure, General Electric reported a smaller-than-expected decline in profit but its shares sank to a 21-month low.For the second quarter, GE’s earnings fell to 28 cents per share from 51 cents a year ago as revenue dropped 11.7% to $29.5...

By Matthew Heller • July 21, 2017

Malware Bug to Infect Nuance’s Q3 Results

Nuance Communications, a voice transcription service for health care providers, said Friday it expects its third- and fourth-quarter results to be impacted by a malware program that hit businesses around the world last month.Nuance was one of the many corporate victims of the “NotPetya” malware, ...

By Matthew Heller • July 21, 2017

Rewards Spending Cuts Into AmEx Profit

American Express reported better-than-expected second-quarter results but net income fell 33% amid heavy promotional spending.The company’s profit dropped to $1.3 billion, or $1.47 per share, from $2.0 billion, or $2.10 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Sales reached $8.31 billion, up...

By Matthew Heller • July 20, 2017

Valspar Costs Weigh on Sherwin-Williams Profit

Paint maker Sherwin-Williams reported sales soared to an all-time quarterly high but costs related to its acquisition of Valspar weighed on its bottom line.The company has benefited from strong consumer spending and that continued in the second quarter as sales jumped 16% to $3.74 billion, beatin...

By Matthew Heller • July 20, 2017

What a Corporate Tax Cut Might Mean to Your Company

On April 26, 2017, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the basics of the Trump Administration’s desired corporate tax reform. In that briefing he stated, in part, “Right now, we have a 35% corporate rate on worldwide income and deferral. It is perhaps the most complicated and uncompetitiv...

By Mark E. Haskins and Paul J. Simko • July 20, 2017

W.W. Grainger CFO to Retire, Stock Falls 7%

Shares in W.W. Grainger tumbled on Wednesday, apparently reflecting investor concern over the retirement of CFO Ron Jadin even though the industrial supplier’s latest quarterly earnings beat Wall Street estimates.Jadin, 56, who joined the company in 1998 and has served as CFO since 2008, announce...

By Matthew Heller • July 19, 2017

Revenue Drops 40% at Goldman’s FICC Unit

Goldman Sachs shares fell 2.5% on Tuesday as investors focused on the continuing troubles of the bank’s fixed income, currency, and commodities client execution unit rather than its quarterly earnings beat.For the second quarter, Goldman delivered earnings per share of $3.95, ahead of analysts’ e...

By Matthew Heller • July 18, 2017

BofA’s Retail Unit Hits ‘Milestone’ $2B Profit

Bank of America on Tuesday reported that second-quarter earnings rose 10% as revenue from its consumer banking unit was boosted by strong demand for loans amid low interest rates.CEO Brian Moynihan and CFO Paul Donofrio both described the quarter as one of the best in the bank’s history, with Moy...

By Matthew Heller • July 18, 2017

Netflix Adds 5.2M Subscribers, Shares up 10%

Netflix shares rose more than 10% after the digital streaming giant said it added 5.2 million new subscribers in the second quarter, easily beating analysts’ projections.The return of marquee content such as “Orange is the New Black” and “House of Cards” helped boost Netflix subscriber growth in ...

By Matthew Heller • July 18, 2017