Is There An Intent To Decieve?

Last night I blogged on the issue where the financial reporter for Star Bizweek, has written yet another incrediblly, creative story based on his source. A source till this very day, has been proven time and time again to be rather lacking for the listed companies always deny the story alleged by Mr.Jose sources. (See here for yesterday blog posting: According To A Source )

This is getting extremely embarrasing for it just highlights the lack of integrity from our Malaysian financial journalists. Aren't they supposed to report based on facts and not heresays, rumours or sources?

Anyway I was told by a friend that the story itself had one huge glaring misleading fact.

Have a look at the news article again. Here is the link: Dialog Group to list unit in Singapore Stock Exchange

• For the first three months of financial year 2007 (FY07) ended September, Dialog Group posted a net profit of RM12.8mil on the back of RM100.9mil in sales, which is a gain of about 56% and 29% respectively from a year ago. The company’s earnings per share gained by about 55% to 93 sen per share in the quarter under review.

What's so wrong?

Firstly, do remember the article is insinuating that Dialog Group plans to list its unit in the SES. News like this will generate interest to the stock. Now look at the above statement.

Earnings per share gained about 55%!!!

That alone paints another extremely rosy story.

And to put icing on the cake it states an earnings per share of 93 sen.

So what's so wrong?

Well here is the link to Dialog latest quarterly earnings : Quarterly rpt on consolidated results for the financial period ended 30/9/2006

Was Dialog earning per share 93 sen or 0.93 sen?

Could it be a mistake?

Take a step back again. The previous week he wrote about Timedotcom and Telekom. ( See http://everything27.blogspot.com/2006/12/zero-integrity-from-our-financial-press.html ) Telekom had since came out blasting that the article was inaccurate and misleading!

Secondly, have a look here again: http://everything27.blogspot.com/2006/12/where-is-integrity-of-our-financial.html

1. Take the case of AV Ventures. The reporter highlighted the previous year earnings (which was ok) but failed gravely to mention that AV Ventures were losing money for its most recent 2 quarters when the article was published. Subtle attempt to mislead?

2. Take the case of Salcon. The Earnings Per share was quoted to be 30 sen. And then it was highlighted that Salcon's PE was 9.3x. Actual earnings? 0.3 sen. Another subtle attempt to mislead? Typo mistake? Hard to believe because the reporter ownself stated that Salcon earned 575 thousand only.

3. The example of Tradewinds. Tradwinds was a company whose debt issue was a known issue. First he insinuated that Tradewinds is BELIEVED to earn 100 mil for the year. That was in Feb 2005. This is the quarterly earnings reported back at that time: here . See how far off he was? And then the total debts was wrongly stated. He boldly stated that Tradewind had cut its debt from 2.5 bil to only 1.2 debt? Actual debts? 1.894 billion at that time. How nice. Tradewinds debts shrunk by some 600 mil with one stroke of the pen! Could it be a mistake? Again hard to accept for the reporter knows how to dig such facts out but yet when it comes to cruial points, and in this example, the total debts was wrongly stated. Another subtle attempt to mislead?

I could go on and on and on.

Time and time again, same style, according to source + occasional 'intellegent' mistakes being churned out by this reporter.

So I ask again...

Do you reckon that there is an intent to decieve by this reporter?

Or perhaps as Rob Kirby would call it, a subtle attempt to manipulate?