The same company files two profit numbers for one year.
Read the wrong one and you misprice the stock.
2
Sets of audited accounts every company with subsidiaries publishes for the same year. Standalone is the parent alone. Consolidated is the whole group. They can differ by more than double.
Friend pulls up a holding company. Its own profit sits as a small number under a big market value. He calls it overpriced and moves on. He read the parent on its own. The group underneath it, the profit that is actually his, was more than double the line he looked at.