Just when you want to try to give business the benefit of the doubt, you run into earnings season. Two of the companies I cover had fine income statements, and less-than-stellar statements of cash flows for the quarter. But of course, their cash flows were fine for the first three quarters combined. So guess which time period they reported their cash flows on?
I know they'll say something about seasonality and how you can't judge a company by its quarter, but if you're bound by law to report quarterly cash flows, report quarterly cash flows. Do they really think they're fooling anyone by making them back out the cash flows for the quarter, rather than just giving them out?
It's probably the same reason that 95% of companies use the indirect method of cash flows, which nobody understands, rather than the direct method, which everyone understands.