More serious, its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- a crucial measure of profitability -- plunged to nearly zero this year from $35 million in the previous fiscal year.
"For the first time, you're starting to see mainstream institutional investors become concerned that the decade-long stock-option binge has left companies with serious, structural earnings problems," said Patrick S. McGurn, the director of corporate programs at Institutional Shareholder Services, a Rockville, Md., group that advises large investors.
"Keep an eye on those corporate managers who are very serious about keeping earnings up".
In particular, differences in the probability of employment may be more serious than differences in earnings. . the causal effect of education on earnings and health should be identified, using credible exogenous variation; it should be recognized that early school leavers are heterogeneous and have heterogeneous returns to education.
Mr. Bewkes said that the CNN that was inherited by Mr. Walton in 2003 "was underperforming," with its earnings "in serious decline".
However, the article relied on estimates of the return on investment published by PayScale, a survey that is subject not only to multiple data issues, such as small non-random samples and misreporting of earnings, but serious methodological shortcomings as well.To take one example, the notion of working through college is not considered.
In particular, differences in the probability of employment may be more serious than differences in earnings.
Differences in the probability of employment may be more serious than differences in earnings. .
All you can say is that so far there's no serious overvaluation built into earnings expectations as reflected in present stock prices.
"Fiscal year 2004 earnings are in serious jeopardy," she wrote, "and, at this point in time, we prefer to invest our dollars elsewhere". Shares of Jones Apparel closed at $28.52, about 9.4 times estimated earnings for 2003, Ms. Black said.
