Props to Cathie

Accounting is the practice of using numbers to tell the story of a company’s past, present, and future. For an investor, these numbers and stories are the foundation of all decisions, so it’s imperative that they’re done correctly. And generally, they are.

But lately, there’s been an uptick in the number of accounting mishaps making their way into the financial markets. Today we got a few more instances of this problem, so let’s take a look. 📝

Those who work at AT&T today did not have a great day, but those who use their services had a pretty good excuse to chill out at work today. That’s because the telecom giant experienced a nationwide cellphone outage that impacted tens of thousands of its customers today. 📵

While the nation’s largest carrier said it restored wireless service to all impacted customers by midday, no reason has been given for the outages. With T-Mobile and Verizon’s networks unaffected, regulators quickly questioned whether AT&T experienced a hack or other cyberattack. 📡

It’s been a rough few years for payment giant PayPal, with shares falling 85% peak-to-trough. Recently, the stock has begun to rebound with other beaten-down tech names but remains about 80% below all-time highs. In other words, it would need to nearly 5x its share price to reach those levels again. 📈

While that may seem a ways off, investors have recently pushed shares to their best three-day run since the end of 2022. That’s because the company promised to roll out new “customer-backed innovation” at an event next Thursday, with its new CEO Alex Chriss saying, “It is very clear what we need to do.”