Answer: They count the minutes before the bids dry up on the company stock. Then they wait til "60 Minutes" calls to say that Mike Wallace and camera crew are on the way over.

And as a shareholder, what do you do on hearing this news? You sell the stock as fast as you can.

Today UnitedHealth Group (UNH), a once-storied leader of the Cara 100 has really fallen on bad times. Even their auditor won't give them a break. I figured something might be up in 2Q06 when I heard Cramer touting the stock as it appeared to be in free-fall.

Whoa, stop the presses. Surely this cannot be happening. Not being able to file a quarterly report on account of nobody knows where the Company's balance sheet stands, I will now have to drop UnitedHealth Group from the Cara Global Best 100 Companies list.

I mean; I run a respectable list.

Every listed company ought to be able to file a balance sheet as and when required, right? I'm no dummy. Five years an auditor (KPMG and PwC) taught me a few lessons.

I was on one client job where the books almost balanced " not quite but almost. My manager wouldn't let me leave the job until I discovered "my" error. Then he got concerned and sent in a couple associates of mine whom he figured could add past a million, but they too couldn't narrow the difference.

That was followed by the firm's A Team " the finest sleuths in the City, and by golly they too were stumped. Aha, the manager and partner showed up to clean up our mess, but they also couldn't find the difference.

We had a big firm, and nobody in the bullpen.

I learned something on that audit engagement. Auditors don't sign off on statements that don't balance. Before we finally departed, we had reconstructed the entire set of books. Oh, and the CEO was arrested for fraud.

That was a life's lesson. You have to know that when the auditors won't sign off for a company as big ($62 billion market cap) as UnitedHealth Group, there's a good reason. Auditors deal in relative and material numbers, so something that's "relevant and material" to $62 billion is a potentially big number.

It doesn't happen often, but when it does, you say "sayonara" to your stock position " as quickly as you can hit that Sell button or shout into the phone "Sold to you!"

Maybe the Company will get their act together " after all, UBS has maintained a Buy 2 Rating. But I'll bet on history. That's a lesson I learned already.

Btw, UBS analyst Justin Lake did publish a report today on this former-CARA 100 company. Download UBS Aug 10 UNH report.

For what it's worth.

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The stock closed today at $47.40. The chart looks to me like there is little support down to about 32.

Without an auditor telling us how much the earnings are, our figuring a PE on $47.90 or say $32 is a moot point. We're being told it's all UNH Monopoly Money until November 9.

An awful lot of bad stuff can go down in 90 days.

What more can I say?