JNJ,VZ: One Time Charges Do Count

JNJ did what almost every company did, which was try meet earnings numbers through cost-cutting.  lot of cost cutting involves laying people off. Without cost cutting earnings would not be as high, so a lot of people taking the one time charge out are wrong in looking at earnings. They can lower costs going forward inline with what costs were this time with lower employment, but they cannot have their pie and eat it at the same time. This is still one of the safer and more stable stocks for people afraid of volatility, though.

Here is an excerpt from today's WSJ on VZ number: Same story - layoff charges took company to a loss.

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Verizon Communications swung to a fourth-quarter loss as the company took a $3 billion charge related to work-force cuts. Verizon reported a loss of $653 million, or 23 cents a share, from a year-earlier profit of $1.23 billion, or 43 cents. Excluding one-items including the costs from cutting some 8,000 jobs, earnings fell to 54 cents from 61 cents. Verizon added 2.2 million new wireless subscribers in the quarter, up from 1.2 million in the year-earlier quarter.

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