Finally, they're starting to pay attention to companies that abuse non-GAAP numbers...

hosted.ap.org/dy...-06-52

Aluminum giant Alcoa has taken "restructuring" and related charges in 20 of the past 21 quarters. The company reported net losses of more than $900 million in the five years through 2014, but analysts have largely shrugged them off because they're tied to a strategic shift that involves getting rid of unwanted businesses. Analysts prefer to point to the $3.1 billion in adjusted profits during that time.

"If you have to reinvent the company every couple of quarters, then it's not a one-off," says accounting expert Jack Ciesielski, longtime publisher of The Analyst's Accounting Observer, a newsletter.

Salesforce.com, a leader in cloud computing, routinely excludes the cost of stock compensation from figures it touts to investors, and analysts largely do the same. Analysts say the company earned $1.2 billion in adjusted profits in the five years through 2014. Its bottom-line result, including stock pay and other costs, was a $712 million loss.

Brian Rauscher, chief portfolio strategist at Robert W. Baird & Co., says stocks can continue to rise based on an inflated account of company profits for months or even years, but not indefinitely. He says it's like a bomb no one can see has been placed under the market: You know it's there, but you're not sure when it will go off.

"We don't know if the fuse is a few inches or a few miles," he says.