First, housekeeping: Glad to be back!
Second: My inaugural “Herb on the Street” on CNBC (see video below) focused on whether Hewlett Packard is minding the earnings GAAP.
GAAP, of course, is generally accepted accounting principles. My beef: HP presents itself to Wall Street as a non-GAAP company and has decided to exclude a $1 billion charge from non-GAAP earnings.
The issue of GAAP vs. non-GAAP is a longtime, simmering issue on Wall Street and it really gets down to this: Should investors view companies the way the companies want to be viewed or the way GAAP intended them to be viewed?