Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

What’s the best way to measure corporate performance?

Feb 18, 2022
“There isn’t one,” said Patrick Badolato, a professor of accounting. But investors and analysts use “net income” and “EBITDA” in their attempts.
Obscure financial metrics "seem to tell a nice and neat and tidy story, and the reality is messy and nuanced,” said Patrick Badolato, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Texas.
George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images

Export-Import Bank might shake years of reduced powers

May 7, 2019
The Senate will vote on confirming three new board members who would enable the Export-Import Bank to perform its full mission. Click the audio player above to hear the full story.
People arrive for the U.S. Export-Import Bank's annual conference in Washington, D.C., in 2013.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Corporate debt may pose risks if economy goes south

Apr 24, 2019
AT&T has $169 billion in debt on its balance sheet. That’s high, even for a telecom company, and until it whittles that debt down AT&T won’t be able to focus on priorities like expanding HBO or developing a 5G network. Part of the reason the company wound up with this massive debt — the biggest of […]
The AT&T logo.
Darren Carroll/Getty Images

Corporations cashing in on cheap debt while they can

Nov 10, 2015
U.S. companies raised more than $800 billion in corporate bonds so far this year.