New Math

Story: Novell reports loss as older business shrinksTotal Replies: 0
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TxtEdMacs

May 26, 2005
11:33 AM EDT 		From the "story": "... Novell posted a net loss of $16 million, or 4 cents per share, for the fiscal second quarter, which ended April 30. This compared with a year-earlier loss of $15 million, or 4 cents per share.

The per-share loss did not change from a year earlier because of the fact Novell's share count shrank to 378,219 diluted shares outstanding, down from 384,528 a year earlier. ..."

Let's go through that again: the loss increases but the number of shares decrease. Hence, you are dividing into a larger number by one that has become smaller. Each alone would have increased the result. But together you hold constant!

Could someone explain this logic? Perhaps they inverted the outstanding number of shares, which might have kept the loss per share constant.

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