Too often, investors focus on figures that supposedly offer insight into a company's performance without shedding light on how it actually makes its money.

Graphic-design and printing-services company VistaPrint is a case in point. Investors have pushed the shares down over the past month because the company's most recent quarterly results raised concerns about slowing revenue growth and narrowing gross margins.

But on that score, investors may be worrying about the wrong issue: VistaPrint appears to generate a big portion of its operating profit from fees it receives for 'referring' customers to outside parties that 'offer' rewards programs.

That calls into question whether the stock, even after its recent fall, deserves to trade at 20 times expected earnings for the fiscal year ending in June 2009, according to estimates from Thomson Reuters.

VistaPrint's customers often don't realize that they are purchasing the referred services. The services are offered through a screen that pops up at the end of the VistaPrint buying process. That screen purports to offer the customer $10 off their most recent purchase. But customers who sign up for this are actually enrolling in a program that charges them $14.95 a month for what are supposed to be discounts on amusement parks and movies, among other things.

In a statement, VistaPrint said, 'We don't 'trick' our customers into a service that they don't want. Customers are smarter than that. We go to great lengths to ensure that only those customers that want that particular service or offering pay for that service or offering.'

The company declined to say what portion of operating profit comes from referral fees, adding that it doesn't give product-by-product breakdowns.

In regulatory filings, VistaPrint acknowledges the risk associated with referral fees. The company said some of the programs that pay it referral fees 'have been the subject of consumer complaints and litigation alleging that their enrollment and billing practices violate various consumer protection laws or are otherwise deceptive.'

A careful read of the fine print in VistaPrint's financial filings shows that referral fees are an important driver of profit.

In the fiscal quarter ended March 31, for example, VistaPrint said 6.7% of its $106 million in revenue came from referral fees. Such disclosures about referral fees came only after prodding last year from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But the SEC didn't force VistaPrint to disclose how this revenue affected operating profit. To figure that out, one has to read lower in the footnote, which says that referral-fee revenues 'have minimal corresponding direct cost of revenue.'

In other words, they are pretty much pure profit. But assuming, say, that the company racked up an 80% margin on these revenues, the fees would have accounted for about half of operating profit in the most recent quarter.

The contribution, though, could be even higher, given VistaPrint's own description of the costs tied to them as 'minimal.' Analysts note that referral revenue is declining as an overall slice of the business. But it still makes up a big piece of profit.

Until that changes, investors should remember that Vista-Print prints business cards -- not money.

J.P. Morgan's Dimon

Warns on Credit Cards

One lesson investors have learned by watching J.P. Morgan Chase manage its way through the credit-market mess is that if this bank is worried, others should be terrified. If J.P. Morgan expects losses, they will likely be worse at its rivals.

Chief Executive James Dimon recently sounded a warning about credit cards. With the second quarter nearly two-thirds over and earnings preannouncement season coming up, history could repeat itself quickly.

Last month, J.P. Morgan wrote off 4.5% of its credit-card loans, up from 4.35% in March and 3.84% a year earlier. Mr. Dimon said that upward trend will continue, with losses on track to surpass 5% this year and 6% in 2009 -- potentially a nearly 50% rise from last year's levels.

When it comes to credit-card losses, other big banks appear to have more to worry about than J.P. Morgan. Citigroup's April loss rate was 5.74%, compared with 5.37% in March and 4.09% last spring. Bank of America Corp. has the highest loss rate: 6.88% last month, versus 6.52% a month earlier and 5.39% a year earlier.

投資者往往太過看重公司的業績數據，試圖從中洞察公司營運表現究竟如何，殊不知這些數字并不能告訴人們這家企業到底是怎么把錢掙到手的。

制圖設計及印刷服務公司VistaPrint就是這樣一個例子。投資者在過去一個月中一直在打壓該股，只因其最近財季的盈利情況令人擔心該公司收入增長放緩、毛利降低。

但是究其原因，投資者可能擔心的不是地方。VistaPrint營運利潤中的很大一部分似乎來自于把客戶推薦給提供其他項目的外部企業而從中賺取的“過手推薦費”。

這就引發了這樣一個問題：即便該股近期連連下挫，但其市盈率是否值得保持在20倍的水平；這一數據是基于湯姆森-路透(Thomson Reuters Corp.)對該公司截至2009年6月財年的盈利預期所做的計算。

VistaPrint的客戶往往意識不到他們買了轉手服務。他們在VistaPrint買進流程最后彈出的屏幕中選擇了該服務。這個頁面聲稱自己給客戶剛剛購買的服務折去了10美元。但那些簽單的客戶實際上卻是注冊了一個每月向他們收費14.95美元的項目，注冊這個項目可以在他們去游樂園、看電影或參加其他活動時享受到折扣價。

VistaPrint在一份聲明表示，公司并沒有欺騙客戶接受他們不想接受的服務；客戶是更聰明的一群人；公司付出了極大的努力，為的就是確保只有那些想接受、或愿意掏錢的客戶才會購買這些它們。

公司拒絕透露營運利潤中有多大比重來自這種“過手推薦費”，并表示不提供各種產品的細分數據。

VistaPrint在提交給監管機構的文件中承認這種收入蘊含著風險。公司表示，部分付給自己推薦費的項目遭到了消費者的投訴，甚至吃了官司；消費者聲稱公司讓他們參加這樣的項目并為此付費實際上違反了多部消費者保護法的規定，或直指這其中存在欺騙行為。

通過仔細研讀VistaPrint財務報告中的繁雜描述就不難發現，此類收入在推高公司收益方面發揮了重要作用。

舉例來說，VistaPrint表示在截至3月31日的財季中，其1.06億美元的總收入中有6.7%是這種推薦費所得。在去年美國證券交易委員會(SEC)的敦促下，公司才同意對此項收入情況進行披露。

但SEC并沒有強制要求VistaPrint說明這類收入對營運利潤有何影響。要想弄明白這一點，人們就必須再去研究下方的腳注，上面說推薦費收入的直接成本極低。

換句話說，這項收入中很大一部分就是純利潤。但是，如果假設推薦費收入的利潤率是80%，那么此項盈利就占到了公司最近財季總利潤的將近一半。

然而，考慮到VistaPrint自己說這項業務的成本“極低”，那么它對公司盈利的貢獻怕是要更多。分析師指出，推薦費收入隨著整體業務的下滑也在減少，但它在整體盈利中仍占到了很大一部分。

在這種情況發生改變前，投資者都應該記住Vista-Print的業務是印名片，而不是鈔票。

摩根大通董事長戴蒙為信用卡業務敲警鐘

投資者通過觀察摩根大通(J.P. Morgan Chase)在應對信貸危機時的所作所為就應該學會一點，如果一家銀行令人擔心，那么別的銀行也好不到哪里去。如果摩根大通預計會發生虧損，那么它的競爭對手表現可能會更糟糕。

摩根大通董事長詹姆斯•戴蒙(James Dimon)日前就對信用卡業務發出了警告。由于第二財季已過去了三分之二，且收益預告季節即將拉開大幕，歷史可能很快又要重演了。

摩根大通上個月沖減了4.5%的信用卡貸款，沖減比例較3月的4.35%以及上年同期的3.84%均有所上升。戴蒙表示，這一上升趨勢還將繼續下去，預計今明兩年的損失將分別超過5%和6%，這和去年時比起來幾乎增長了50%。

其實就信用卡業務的虧損而言，其他大型銀行似乎比摩根大通更撓頭。花旗(Citigroup) 4月份的虧損率為5.74%，而3月份及上年同期時分別為5.37%和4.09%。上個月美國銀行(Bank of America Corp.) 4月份的信用卡業務虧損率成了業界“第一”，高達6.88%，而3月份和上年同期分別為6.52%和5.39%。