This earnings season, stock earnings reports have been turned into a points-based guessing game.
It’s like using supermarket loyalty points to guess a game’s score: guess wrong and it costs nothing; guess right and you get some little reward. With points on the line, it barely hurts to play, so people make snap judgments.
Earnings reports are more concrete than scores. When the results come out, there’s only one number, and there’s nowhere to hide flawed reasoning.
There are only a handful of popular companies, and anyone can say they’re bullish. But you need to commit to whether you’re talking about revenue, profit, or guidance before there’s anything to check. Just writing “bullish” is the same as writing nothing.
What’s really valuable about this feature isn’t guessing right. It’s writing down your reasoning before the earnings come out, then checking it point by point afterward. The number of points is secondary.
Points are a scoreboard, not a ledger.
#StockEarningsSeason
It’s like using supermarket loyalty points to guess a game’s score: guess wrong and it costs nothing; guess right and you get some little reward. With points on the line, it barely hurts to play, so people make snap judgments.
Earnings reports are more concrete than scores. When the results come out, there’s only one number, and there’s nowhere to hide flawed reasoning.
There are only a handful of popular companies, and anyone can say they’re bullish. But you need to commit to whether you’re talking about revenue, profit, or guidance before there’s anything to check. Just writing “bullish” is the same as writing nothing.
What’s really valuable about this feature isn’t guessing right. It’s writing down your reasoning before the earnings come out, then checking it point by point afterward. The number of points is secondary.
Points are a scoreboard, not a ledger.
#StockEarningsSeason
