Financial Statement Question(Stock)

[d4mo]

I'm really trying to bury myself in stock analysis but I'm a pretty big newb so I'm trying to read everything I can.

I read this article about best buys 3rd quarter earnings report here:

http://www.investorguide.com/article/11331/best-buy-shares-pummeled-after-earnings-report/


And they said that Best Buy had a 97% drop in operating income.

Looking at their quarterly income statment here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=BBY

Their operating income went from 262,000,000 to 33,000,000. Which is an 87% drop. Am I looking at something wrong or did they fat finger the article?

 

[amdhunter]

They used Conservative mathematics.
FISCAL CLIFF!!!

 

[rcpratt]

Looks like they used before tax income, although they weren't explicit.

 

[KB]

The investor guide staff likely mistyped the numbers. If you are into conspiracy theories, its possible they were short Best Buy and wanted to make the numbers look even worse, but I am more inclined to believe it was an honest mistake.

Remember this is just an analyst or journalist typing these, they aren't held accountable by the FASB or SEC for these articles, so you often have to double-check their numbers.

 

[d4mo]

I think I found where they got their numbers. They must have been comparing quarter 3 2012 to quarter 3 2011. I assumed they were comparing to last quarter.