Can revenue be negative

Answer 1

The word revenue is regarded as an irrelevant word in finance. Some companies mean it to mean the money they take in from customers and sales, other companies mean it to mean all the money they take in minus things they invest in like other stocks, companies, equipment and so on. Yet other companies mean it to mean some other collection of streams in inflowing cash and outgoing liabilities.

If you look at the Income statement of any stock, for example NYSE:MBI, you will see negative revenues. It makes you scratch your head to wonder how you could "take in" negative money. Did they sell to a customer the right to pay them money during a sale? Upper management at companies want to make their company look either really good, or really bad, causing the stock price to fluctuate so they can acquire stock at a low price, and sell it high. One way to depress a stock is to tell finance to change how revenue is calculated so investor projections will be manipulated up or down to get the investors to take the wrong end of the trade. By twisting the arms of the finance people to shift how they report revenue, the company can create a rosy picture, or apocalyptic picture for investors who don't know that revenue means anything they want it to mean, and they will change how it is calculated from year to year.

By strict definitions, revenue can not be negative. But in the corrupt world of finance, revenue is a number between positive infinity and negative infinity depending on how the upper management instruct the finance people how to lie on the spreadsheets in their submissions to the Securities and exchange commission.

So yes, Revenue can be negative, and when you see revenues as negative, it is an "Accounting irregularity" which means they are trying to create a positive or negative picture for investors depending on the agendas of the directors and upper management of corporations.

Wise investors know that when you see a company reporting negative revenues, or constantly changing how revenues are calculated, it is accounting irregularities from individuals wishing to take advantage of investors for personal gain.