Big bath accounting
The practice of writing off as much as possible at once in a loss-making year: the year is bad anyway, and future charges have already been taken.
How to read the number
After such a year profit grows more easily: the base is depressed and part of the future write-offs is already done.
When the metric lies
From outside it looks like an honest acknowledgement of problems. Telling the two apart takes the composition of the write-offs and what happens in the years that follow.
Also known as: big bath