Progressive Stocks

[stills999]

SAN - I started looking at this last night Malc, but did not have the time to finish so I'll comment more hopefully this weekend.

However, I think I/we might have misunderstood loss provisions. At first I thought they were good as conservatively setting aside funds against future losses. However, loss provisions are not just 'setting aside additional $$$ for a rainy day' but, rather, need to be replenished against current write-offs*. Thus, the key metric seems to be change in the ratio of loss provisions and/or the *incremental* provisions that have been set aside or accumulated versus the previous year.

As I said, I have not finished investigating, but perhaps you know this stuff already so it would be good to hear your thoughts. As backup I have a link but it's on another computer and I don't have time to find it right now.


* On the income statement, a write-off is expensed as a reduction in loss provisions ... if I understand correctly, there is no separate line item for 'write-offs' separate to loss provisions, which is the source of my previous mis-understanding (I think).