I’m not surprised by this. It’s what the people have learned from the MSM.
OTOH, the author of the article plays way to loose with the term “profit margin”, That term is normally used to specify the markup of goods sold from the the cost of those goods. Or something similar.
Bottom line profit is what counts. What counts even more is “cash flow”. Good accountants and tax attorneys can help push your taxable profit down and your cash flow up.
In the end it is consistent after taxes cash flow that determines the financial health of a company.
A company could certainly clear 36% gross profits and only 7% after all expenese accounted for. So in theory both could be correct.I didnt notice a distinction in the article. The gross profit for my business was 35.9% last month....net will be around 1/3 of that.