January 9, 2004—I've read a lot of proxies over the years, particularly so in the past year as I was working on my book. So you can imagine my surprise when I came across Jacobs Engineering's (JEC) invitation to investors (and their own employees) in the proxy it filed yesterday. "Any shareholder or investor ...

January 8, 2004—In Agilent's (A) 2003 proxy, the company listed its audit fees as $3 million. But in the latest proxy filed yesterday, the company says those audit fees for last year were really $4.38 million. Though the difference appears to be due to a change in the way Agilent was counting its numbers, ...

January 7, 2004—Disney (DIS) should be filing its proxy any day now and it will be interesting to see whether Air Roy -- the airline owned by former Vice Chairman Roy Disney, who resigned in a huff at the end of November -- is still in business. In fiscal 2002, the company paid the ...

January 6, 2004—ConAgra (CAG) filed its latest 10-Q yesterday, which was exactly two weeks after the first case of Mad Cow in the US was reported. Yet despite ConAgra's large stake in beef feedlots and processing -- it still owns about 45 percent of a large beef and pork operation it sold to a ...

January 5, 2004—Normally, when a company files a disclosure on a Friday of a holiday week as Costco (COST) did on Friday, your first instinct should be to wonder what they're trying to hide. But after looking at Costco's Q, I really didn't notice anything all that unusual. The only thing that really jumped ...

January 2, 2004—On Tuesday, SPX Corp. (SPW) filed its 3rd amended K this year, correcting numbers it first put out in March. The company has also filed 4 amended Qs in 2003. In an explanatory note at the beginning of the K, the company said this was due to an SEC review. In the ...

December 31, 2003—Running a bit behind schedule today with a new post because I'm still trying to decide whether to dump a few stocks before the end of the year. So if you haven't taken a good hard look at what you're holding -- skimming the Qs, the most recent K and proxy, there's no time ...

December 30, 2003—New Year's is always a great time to reflect. Just a few years ago, Analytical Surveys (ANLT) was trading at over $500 a share. Today, it's trading around $3, after a 10:1 split. According to the K that the company filed yesterday, it may finally be putting its old problems behind. In ...

December 29, 2003—You have to give Whole Foods Markets (WFMI) points for providing such clear disclosure on their options in the 10-K it filed last week. Unlike a lot of other companies that rely heavily on options, the large natural foods chain doesn't try to fudge their options expenses by monkeying around with the ...

December 24, 2003—Starbucks' (SBUX) disclosure on stock options in its 10-K filed yesterday reminds me of what happens when you leave the coffee maker on too long: you get a thick, black sludge. For a company that relies on options this heavily -- 8 million were exercised in 2003 -- the company really needs ...