Headlines that make your head spin

I logged onto my favorite “News” website this morning and saw the following headline:

“Citigroup posts $2.5B loss, but beats expectations”

Now I’m not very knowledgeable in the field of high finance, but it boggles my mind that a company can lose 2.5 BILLION dollars and have that fact be considered “better than expected”. Most Americans would consider losing 2.5 THOUSAND dollars a tragedy, yet the major corporations can lose billions and simply shrug it off as if it’s nothing.

Of course I’m just a country boy from the hills and hollers of southwestern Virginia, but things like this really don’t leave me with all that much confidence in the stock market.