One thing you must understand about all major corparations is the way that they actually look and the 'profit and lost' columns.
When you are a major corporation that is selling stocks or has large volumn of capital tied up in the market place, the last thing you want to do is claim that you are outrigh losing money. It's simply bad for business.
However, some companies actually claim 'losses' as a way of creating revinue. This is done by a company stating that profits are down and stock prices are lowered. For potential stock buyers, this is a good time to purchase these companies stocks, if that company has an overall good track record of annual profits, (such as ebay). they buy low with the hopes of the stock re-gaining profit in the future..
Many companies claim a loss even though they actually made an overall profit. For instance, if their finanial dept predicted profits of 100 million dollars and they only made 90 million dollars profit, some companies will claim they had a 'loss' of 10 million dollars...This may in the short term show stock prices to drop, yet at the same time, investors will jump to buy up the stock while it's down with hopes of it gaining strength in the short term future... Many day traders make their living this way..