Chapter 6

Guiding the Misguided

Why It’s Beneficial to Assist Investors with Forward-Looking Information

In This Chapter

  • Quarterly or annual earnings guidance is pervasive, and for good reason.
  • Guidance improves transparency, reduces stock volatility, and mitigates the consequences of shareholder litigation, no mean feat.
  • Stopping guidance drives analysts away and increases uncertainty about the company.
  • Fighting short sellers is a bad idea.
  • Guidance in cyberspace.
  • When and how to guide investors.

The practice of earnings guidance—managers’ public forecasts of earnings, and often additional performance measures—is a hotly debated issue. Both the reasons and consequences of guidance are contested. This obviously calls for a thorough examination ...

Get Winning Investors Over now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.