Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Blackrock Head Takes Other CEOs to Task: Forget about Quarterly Earnings Guidance

I agree with him 100%.

"Today’s culture of quarterly earnings hysteria is totally contrary to the long-term approach we need," Fink, the CEO of BlackRock Inc., wrote in a letter to more than 500 companies, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. Instead of focusing on small deviations from analysts’ earnings estimates, management should use quarterly reports to demonstrate progress against strategic plans, he wrote.

This is exactly why companies use their cash on pointless stock buybacks instead of increasing value for their businesses. Even acquisitions seem to be a waste of money for the most part. Look at Yahoo's terrible spending spree of failed businesses. You can point to any number of failures when it comes to buying out other companies. However, you might get good engineers or top salespeople or something so it is at least a better use of cash than stock buybacks. They only benefit short-term thinking.

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