Aug. 15--A few sentences on page 46 of a financial disclosure that did not change reported profits, sales or net worth caused Constellation Energy Group's prospects to go into brownout this week.

Its shares dropped 16 percent Tuesday. Analysts rushed to downgrade the stock, although one contrarian changed his recommendation from "underperform" to "hold" because the shares had fallen so far.

Standard & Poor's downgraded Constellation bonds to two steps above "junk" status.

A little jumpy, aren't we?

Not at all.

The punishment of Constellation is an encouraging sign that Wall Street is again skeptical of companies that depend on opaque accounting and complex financial bets for much of their profit. A little such skepticism for folks betting on subprime mortgages could have saved a lot of heartache.

Constellation, owner of Baltimore Gas and Electric, is wagering on energy and interest rates, not mortgages. There is no sign it is about to collapse in the manner of Bear Stearns, Countrywide and other subprime adventurers.

"The company's business profile is strong," Standard & Poor's hastened to note.

Still, the grown-ups are on alert. Think of Constellation as a kid in a bad neighborhood with worried parents. They hope he's OK, but he just broke curfew, and there were beer bottles in the car trunk. Tough love may yet save the day.

A few months ago, Constellation badly miscalculated how much collateral it would have to post with trading partners in the event its credit rating sank. In correcting the error this week, the company not only revealed sloppy bookkeeping but called new attention to the fact that much of its profit comes from bets on commodities, not producing and selling energy.

Under one scenario, Constellation might have to put up $4.6 billion in collateral -- which gives a clue about how huge some of these wagers are. The company has agreed to supply five times as much electricity nationwide as it can generate itself, so it is constantly buying and selling contracts.

Correctly betting on rising coal, electricity and natural gas prices helped Constellation pad profits in the year's first half. But how has the company handled the reversal in energy prices that picked up in mid-July? It won't say, but investors are starting to remember that nobody wins every time he plays the ponies.

At the end of June, Constellation owned nearly $7 billion in complex assets called derivatives. It says they were worth $7 billion, anyway. It won't let outsiders look, and even financial analysts would have a hard time understanding them.