Insiderman

Goldman Releases Earnings Early; Has World Gone Crazy?

Usually, VaR would be stated as the loss over a specific percentage threshold over a particular period of time. For example, if you have a normal distribution of returns, you could look at the 5% left tail over a one day or two week time horizon.

A related problem is that returns are hardly normal and the horizon would get reported as of the end of period. So who knows what actually went on during the period and what extraordinary measures are taken to get that VaR number down by period end.