As Corporate Profits Slow, Watch For More "Non-Traditional" Accounting

“A financial obfuscation” drawn straight from the 2000 dot-com bubble, which makes corporate accounting magically look positive when they might have been negative, is making a comeback, a recent Wall Street Journal report observed, benchmarking what for some is an unwelcome trend in accounting.

Near 13 percent change in results when traditional accounting metrics are used

The climax of the dot-com historic bubble occurred on March 10, 2000 when the NASDAQ was trading near 5000 and then promptly dropped to near 1900 one year later. A degree of the causation behind the loss had roots in creative, non-traditional accounting that propelled some rather stark if rich valuations.

Now “hundreds” of U.S. firms...