The new issue of Jack Ciesielski’s Analyst’s Accounting Observer has a list of “20 Questions to Ask on Conference Calls.” He means quarterly earnings conference calls, and the questions are all related to the current financial and economic turmoil. You’ll have to pay Jack some big bucks if you want to know all 20, but the first two should be enough to give you an indication of what a changed (and suspicion-filled) financial world we now live in:
1. What is the firm’s accounting policy on credit card receivables–are they considered cash equivalents?
2. If credit card receivables are “cash”–who is the bank handling credit card receivables?