Sawyer Business School Students’ Work On Earnings Adjustments Featured in WSJ

Suffolk University Sawyer Business School students partnered with Calcbench, the leading interactive financial research firm for data-intensive analysts, on their third annual non-GAAP report.

The study analyzed 200 randomly chosen S&P 500 firms' 2022 filings and found a 38 percent difference in non-GAAP and GAAP net income, up from 14 percent in 2021.

Suffolk "wintern"students and Calcbench found 1,188 individual reconciling items with a total value of almost $219 billion in the sample group reviewed. Firms averaged 5.9 reconciling items in 2022, almost identical to the average of 5.8 adjxustments per firm in 2021. The average value of the adjustment, however, was $184 million — a 53 percent jump from the prior year. Average non-GAAP adjusted net income was $3.97 billion, 38 percent larger than average GAAP net income, which was only $2.87 billion.

The report’s findings were covered in the Wall Street Journal.