just to illustrate the point i made before regarding quarterlies, forward looking numbers and short term vs long term, this came out overnight
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/war...e-ceos-to-end-quarterly-profit-forecasts.html
their point is to stop forward quarter by quarter earnings guidance by the big cap stocks.
pre casflow emergents dont do that anyway.
but the principle behind why buffet was saying that is precisley the same as why companies like BUD dont disclose unit installations - ie the more you issue those kind of numbers the more the market tends to default to high volatility abrupt overshoots up and down as the goldfish bowl mentality sees money fly in and fly out
this gives mgt little scope or support to take longer term actions required to secure the right results over 3 years - instead the tendency is to burn out their sales staff and prospect relations trying to hit ever higher short term numbers rather than allowing for the natural 'maturation' b2b sales require.
if youre sales people are out pestering prospects repeatedly theyll feel the desperation and wont buy. b2b is like any adult relationship - the more you appear to need it, the less likely you are to get it,.
it would be particularly bad for BUD - becuase ofOhm's annuity income nature
ie if Bud disclosed install numbers for one quarter the market would instantly price in some meaningful fraction of $72k of income per unit x number of installs - then have to wait 3 years for the income to roll in
then immeidtaely assume sales the following quarter will be x% higher again and price that in too
then when each quarterly 4c came trhoguh the gap between what stock has priced in vs what gets reported in early quarters would became apparent and stock sell off hard
and if sales slowed - for no bad reason just being the nature of early stage business sales cycles being very lumpy and unpredictable - the next quarter stock price would crash
and despite what people might like to hope - there's a strong link between share price direction and general investor confidence and support for mgt strategy
yes i know this suggests most shareholders are morons and dont understand how the stock market works. but its true nonetheless.
