Strong Aloca Profits Expected ... http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/10/alcoa-disney-qualcomm_cx_ms_0710video1.html?partner=alerts

Alcoa And Lucent Depress Wall Street ... http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/11/alcoa-lucent-talbot_cx_ms_0711video1.html?partner=alerts

Aloca showing strong gains today, 4%.  on the yahoo balance sheet is says 6.2 million in goodwill - whats the def. of goodwill?

Cupcake, goodwill is what a company pays above fair market value for another company.  Apparently Alcoa purchased another company and it is now a subsidiary of Alcoa.  The goodwill is for the established business and the repoir that it has with its customers.

so goodwill can be good - but if you pay too much above fair market value it's bad...correct?

Cupcake, that is correct.  The bad thing about goodwill is that it is an intangible asset and cannot be amortized or depreciated over time.  There is no tax break.

amortized?

generally assetes, which goodwill is treated like, are amortized... which means they are expensed over their useful lives... if a truck costs $20,000 and you figure it will have a 4 year life, being worth $4,000 dollar value at the end of it's life you expense it by 20,000 - 4,000 / 4 = $4,000/year... which you count as an expense

goodwill is not treated like this

got yeah, that makes more sense...a lot more

DeMerchant, are you sure.   In the past "goodwill"  as an intangible was never allowed to be deducted as an expense, at least not in the US.  That expense had to be absorbed by the purchasing company but could not be writted off for tax purposes.

oops, sorry DeMerchant, I missed the last sentence. Remember,  I'm getting old.  

so overall is there some way of measuring or calculating what a good figure is for goodwill?

The lower the better... no excecptions i dont think

ok, is it common to have no goodwill for established companies

ummm yeah... you only get goodwill when a company buys anouther company for more than it's fair value... so if that hasn't happened a company won't have any goodwill