Earnings Magic Exposed

We are once again in the midst of earnings season when most public corporations release their quarterly earnings results. Investors frequently gauge the quality of earnings by judging them against a consensus of forecasts made by Wall Street analysts.

In " Earnings Magic Exposed " we highlight the gamesmanship employed by analysts and the reporting corporations in "managing" earnings expectations. The collaboration among and between them is nothing short of manipulation in an effort to craft a tale of double digit earnings growth and at the same time spin weak actual growth in the low single digits to appear pleasantly surprising. The unanswered question remains, why do so many investors buy it?