Appeared on March 17, 2009
If the company’s net income from operations (typically, the bottom line on a company's income statement) is close to zero, the company is operating very close to “break-even,” meaning its expenses are roughly equal to its revenue and little to no profit is being made, says George Tsetsekos, Ph.D., Dean of Drexel University's LeBow College of Business. That puts the company in a precarious situation: Should it lose a big order or experience less demand overall for its products, the resulting drop in revenue could push the company's bottom line into the red. If the net income figure is in brackets that means the company is already losing money. Either way, it's not a good sign.