Monday, May 17, 2010

GM's Earnings: More Orwell and Less Truth

How real are GM's earnings?  I don't know.  I can't find any information other than brief news summaries announcing an operating profit based on better sales and cost-cutting.  I would really like to find a GAAP-prepared financial statement.  If anyone can come up with one please link it in the comment section.

Personally, given that we know that the Government is looking to unload its 60% stake in GM, I don't believe the numbers released today.  Put faith in them at your own risk - caveat emptor.  We do know that GM is looking to get back into subprime auto loans and that Toyota sales are rebounding.  I would suspect that the numbers released today are about as reliable as any other the Government reports.  In other words the believability factor is zero unless the Government/GM is willing to publish full financials with an independent auditor's report attached.
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Regarding today's Empire State manufacturing index:  it came in much lower than expected BUT the prices paid component reached its highest level in a year...

13 comments:

  1. The bubble talkers are talking BS as usual.

    http://www.goldalert.com/stories/What-Gold-Price-Bubble

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  2. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/prnewswire/2010/05/17/prnewswire201005170830PR_NEWS_USPR_____DE05678.html

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  3. Thanks for the link, but that's not what I'm looking for. That reported numbers don't tell us anything. They even say that in the press release:

    "While management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information, they are not operating measures under U.S. GAAP and there are limitations associated with their use"

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  4. Tulving is sold out of US junk silver, silver Maple Leafs, and RCM silver bars. Also, no gold British sovereigns or Swiss francs.

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  5. Dave,

    Way off topic here; but I wanted to find out if you had a chance to listen to the gold manipulation debate at financialsense.com. Bill Murphy didn't do GATA any favors with that performance.

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  6. Hey RtR: did not listen. Listening to anything Jeffrey Christian has to say is a tragic waste of brain cells.

    The manipulation debate is not a debate if you look at the numbers. Read Gene Arensberg's latest posted on www.goldseek.com.

    Anyone who argues against manipulation is either tragically corrupt or tragically stupid. Christian is likely both.

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  7. U6 - thanks for the heads up - did not notice that when i was on his site earlier - was checking his bids, which he has pretty raised across all products

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  8. Does this do it:

    http://tinyurl.com/2dybkg9

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  9. Off topic question about gold:

    I was investigating the total amount of gold above ground, and saw a discussion comment on the gold wikipedia page stating there are more gold than officially proclaimed. Are you aware of any of this and is there truth in this?

    User comment:
    'This number has to be way off or just based on bullion reserves by major nations. If you take in account human history and the masses of gold that we have mined through different methods over the last 5000 years, I would really estimated it to be around the 1,000,000 tons or so. My company assist in dust deals and we move about 3,000tons per year or about 1.8% of the worlds gold if the numbers were correct. Only about 100tons or so actually goes to market. Most of it goes into private reserves to be hedged against. I have even be into private vaults with over 20,000tons that were completely off the gold records.'

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  10. JR: thanks for posting the GM link. Unfortunately it's not really much more illuminating than the press releases. All it does is raise more questions about what kind of accounting short-cuts were utilized to produce the numbers. Does anyone really believe that their expense margins REALLY decreased that much? Based on what? The union didn't concede anything. We need a true cash flow statement which they don't provide (of course). Check this out, directly from the filing:

    While management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information, they are not operating measures
    under U.S. GAAP and there are limitations associated with their use. GM’s calculation of these non-GAAP financial measures may
    not be completely comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies due to potential differences between companies in the
    method of calculation. As a result, the use of these non-GAAP financial measures has limitations and should not be considered in
    isolation from, or as a substitute for, other measures such as Net income (loss) or Net income (loss) attributable to common
    stockholders.

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  11. RE: the question on the amount of gold above ground: I doubt anyone really knows the real story. But it sounds like that gold dust guy smokes a lot of angel dust and the sprinkles fairy tale dust about his operations LOL.

    Here's what we do know - and this is even more true right now since CB's globally have become net buyers: the world is "consuming" about around 1500-2000 more tonnes/yr. than it is minings. Up until 2009, the CB's were bridging gap. No mas.

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  12. Dave,

    I agree; the manipulation is no longer a debate, and I can understand Bill's frustration having to debate such a weasel like Christian. That being said the burden of proof is still on GATA to prove the manipulation and I felt Bill's emotions got the better of him.

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  13. GATA has proved the manipulation ad infitum. The Maguire emails should be all we need. The seriousness of this can be seen in the hit and run on Maguire 2 days after the CFTC hearings.

    I didn't realize Puplava was such an apologist for the purveyors of paper gold. I guess he must sell products like the BMG funds so he'll defend the paper products to the bitter end. His clients will suffer when the whole thing goes up in the flames of delivery demands that can be met.

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