????管理層提供的業績指標讓人感覺良好，而且會讓人覺得“如果不考慮那些不利因素就美不勝收”——對投資者來說，一個重大挑戰就是透過這些指標來衡量一家公司真正的盈利能力。就連按照美國通用會計準則（GAAP）計算出來的正式數據也經常需要充分琢磨才能看清真實情況。舉例來說，許多公司都會把自己的凈利潤/股東權益比例做得很高，以此宣稱自己的經營很成功。投資者要注意的是，管理層可以通過增加負債來提高ROE（凈資產收益率），而高杠桿會給一家公司帶來更多風險，而不是讓它變得更好。目前流行的另一種方法是將產品利潤最高的工廠轉移到低稅收國家/地區，但這些地方的稅收可能不會長期維持低水平。避稅能為盈利帶來一、兩次提升，但它不能證明管理層在基本經營方面有任何改進。

????那么，拆穿上面這些伎倆、衡量公司到底有多賺錢的最佳途徑是什么呢？要回答這個問題，就要談到沃倫?巴菲特的投資觀點：找到資本回報率一直很高的公司——不光是它們目前所管理資本的回報率，還包括每年新產生的利潤。復合增長率達到兩位數的新投資就預示著股東能獲得上佳的回報。

????專業期刊《分析師會計觀察》（The Analyst's Accounting Observer）因為巧妙地闡述會計問題而得到資產管理公司經理人的贊譽。這份刊物的出版人杰克?切謝爾斯基為公司盈利能力制定了一個全新指標。他的目標是讓人們清楚地看到經營者在運用股東托付的資金進行投資時所取得的成功。切謝爾斯基把這個指標稱為“COROA”，意思是資產的現金經營回報率（cash operating return on assets）。他的想法是衡量管理層向工廠、研發中心、庫存以及其他所有資產投入的全部資金產生純現金回報的能力，而不是對今后所得現金的預期。2月份，切謝爾斯基在第25期《分析師會計觀察》中寫道：“投資者用公司產生現金的能力和投入到該公司的資金進行比較是合理行為。”對他來說，現金就是一切。他問道：“世界上還有什么比現金更重要？嗯？當然有，那就是更多的現金。”

????第一步是弄清楚真正的經營現金流，也就是在整個財年中獲得的全部資金。它不是現金流量表的“經營活動產生的現金流量”那一欄里所填的那個數字。切謝爾斯基認為，兩個因素造成了這個數字的失真，從而使它不能可靠地衡量真實表現。首先，公司公布的現金流量扣除了所得稅，因此稅負減少會造成經營情況不斷改善的假象。其次，公司公布的數據也不包括利息，而每年支付的利息體現了公司的杠桿水平，但這和管理層在資產經營方面的表現毫無關系。

????因此，切謝爾斯基主張把以現金形式出現的稅負和利息加回去，進而計算出純粹的經營現金流量。如上文所述，這個數字是一家公司在一年時間里的實際收入，管理層可以用它來分紅，回購股票，通過收購其他公司或某些業務來進行“投資”，以及用于資本支出，特別是那些推動增長的資本支出。這是COROA的分子。

????COROA的分母是產生上述經營現金流的資產所消耗的全部資金。要計算這個數字，就要用資產負債表中的“總資產”加上“累計折舊”，這是為了滿足記賬需要，將仍在生產轎車或半導體的工廠或實驗室完全記為費用。幸運的是，美國上市公司每年都必須在年報中公布以現金形式出現的稅負和利息以及累計折舊，而且現在它們正在提交大量新信息。大公司提交年報的最后期限是3月4日。這樣投資者就能采用極為新鮮的數據進行分析。

????A big challenge for investors is piercing management's feel-good, "it's all great if you leave out the bad stuff" earnings metrics to measure a company's true profitability. Even the official GAAP accounting numbers frequently need plenty of scrubbing to reveal the real picture. For example, many companies claim victory by boasting that their ratio of net profits to shareholders' equity is a big number. Investor beware: Management can hike "return on equity" by piling on debt, and high leverage makes the player riskier, not better. Another tactic, now in vogue, is moving factories that make the most profitable products to low-tax nations where the taxes may not remain low for long. That tax arbitrage provides a one- or two-time boost in earnings, but doesn't prove management is running the basic businesses any better.

????So what's the best, gimmick-proof way to measure how profitable companies really are? Answering that question gets to Warren Buffett's view of investing: Finding companies that consistently generate big returns on capital -- not only on the capital they manage now, but the fresh earnings that flow in each year. New investments that compound at double-digit rates are the ticket to fabulous performance for shareholders.

????Jack Ciesielski, author of The Analyst's Accounting Observer, a newsletter prized by asset managers that skillfully demystifies accounting issues, has developed a fresh measure of profitability. His goal is to provide a clear view of managers' success in investing the capital entrusted to them by shareholders. He calls it "COROA," for cash operating return on assets. The idea is to measure management's ability to generate pure cash returns, not cash expected in the future, on every dollar invested in plants, R&D centers, inventories, and all other assets. "It makes sense for an investor to look at a firm's cash generation ability, relative to the cash invested it," Ciesielski wrote in the Feb. 25 edition of his newsletter, "The Analyst's Accounting Observer." For Ciesielski, it's all about cash. "What's more important in the world than cash?" he asks. "Why, it's more cash, of course."

????The first step is ascertaining true operating cash flows, meaning every dollar collected during the fiscal year. That's not the number on the cash flow statement titled "cash flow from operating activities." For Ciesielski, two factors distort that figure, making it an unreliable measure of true performance. First, official cash flow is calculated after cash income taxes, so that falling taxes can create the illusion of ongoing progress. Second, interest is also subtracted, and the size of the annual interest levy reflects the level of leverage, but has nothing to do with how well management is managing their assets.

????Hence, Ciesielski advocates adding back cash taxes and cash interest to calculate pure operating cash flows. Once again, that's the dollar amount that the company actually puts in its coffers during the year. Those are the dollars that management has available to pay dividends, buy back stock, make "investments" by purchasing companies or divisions, and funding capital expenditures, especially those that propel growth. That's the numerator.

????The denominator consists of every dollar spent on the assets that produce those operating cash flows. To calculate that figure, take "total assets" from the balance sheet, and add "accumulated depreciation" to account for the plants or fabs still making cars or semiconductors that, for accounting purposes, are fully expensed. Fortunately, cash taxes, cash interest, and accumulated depreciation must be reported each year in the 10K, and loads of new information is just now being filed. For large companies, the deadline for 10K filings was March 4. So that investors can perform extremely up-to-date analysis.