对于季度盈利，投资者应该三思

如今，很多公司的期望都是，让执行的政策体现出短期利润增长，进而促使投资者把股票价值作为主要依据。在公司预期以盈利为主的情况下，最大的问题之一就是，人们都知道它们一直过于乐观。

2001年9月21日，尽管披露的盈利低于预期，而且出现了现金流缺口，亚马逊的股价仍然达到了192美元，从而使市盈率升至2000多倍的不现实水平。面对这样的高股价，唯一合理的解释是，随后10年该公司的利润年增速将达到80%。亚马逊的股价冲到225美元时，当时的市值为520亿美元，超过了125个国家的经济规模。

与之相比，目前亚马逊的股价在500美元以上，市盈率则降至400倍左右。虽然仍很高，但要合理得多。人们一直把如此夸张的估值水平视为“股市近视眼”的例证之一，也就是投资者只关注短期业绩。

那么，需要我来提醒大家2001年以后股市表现如何吗？

著名激进投资人卡尔•伊坎曾表示，低利率制造出了“新泡沫”，原因是公司用低成本借款来实施收购，或者回购股票，以便提振基本面。这番警告和芬克的担心不谋而合。后者指出：“2015年，分红占标普500指数利润的比重达到了2009年以来的最高点……过去12个月里，股票回购规模上升了27%。”

长期以来，芬克一直在促进公司的可持续增长；卡尔•伊坎则拆分了施乐，并批评贝莱德公司为高收益泡沫添砖加瓦，二者都应被举荐为最佳实用“股东维权主义”的典范。

预测短期业绩体现了公司的短视。同时，频繁发布季度盈利预测的公司还会采取目光短浅的行动。经理人的评估和薪酬通常都和盈利目标挂钩，这促使他们一门心思地打造短期业绩，从而让问题变得更加严重。此外，如果股价对短期盈利有所反应，经理人就可以说，自己这样做是为了“尽量为股东创造财富”。

从2002年开始，通用电气、微软和英特尔等顶尖蓝筹公司的CEO带头主动停止发布盈利预测。此举旨在把经理人从短期盈利目标的框框中解放出来，并避免投资者受到误导。但批评者认为，这些公司是自私自利的，特别是大多数不再发布盈利预期的公司已经出现了业绩欠佳和股价滑坡的情况。

在一定的会计准则和税法约束下，公司盈利充其量也只能算是主观结果，尽管现金流数据，比如活期账户余额是一个确定数字，而且基本上解读不出什么东西来。利润是一种判断，现金才是事实。1994年，沃伦•巴菲特在伯克希尔-哈撒韦的年报中写道：“我们把内在价值定义为一家公司在存续期内可通过业务创造出的现金的贴现值。”

过了近10年，他在2002年的股东大会上发表了同样的见解：“我们绝不会买一家经理人只谈息税折旧摊销前利润（EBITDA）的公司。谈论这种利润会出现较多的猫腻。沃尔玛、通用电气和微软等公司的年报里从来都没出现过这个词。这些骗子想欺骗别人，或者他们自己。”换句话说，这位最著名投资者要传达的信息再明显不过。那就是，价值是指人们可以从一家公司得到的实实在在的东西，而不是它公布的盈利。

公众确实异常痴迷于短期利润。超过三分之二的股价波动都是对季度盈利预期的反应。因此，在华尔街分析师中间，愿意估算现金流的不到15%。然而，只要局势变差，比如经济陷入衰退，股市泡沫就会破裂。基本面处于不利状态的公司有四分之一，对它们来说，投资者将重新寻找优质股，并把注意力放在现金流上，而不是季度盈利。(财富中文网)

K•克里斯托弗•马是斯泰森大学金融学教授。

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s recent letter to 500 chief executives urging them for the first time to stop providing quarterly earnings estimates, is yet another plea for long-term value creation. Today, many companies are expected to execute corporate policies that reflect short-term earnings growth, thus forcing investors to rely mainly on what a stock is worth. When company forecasts are heavily based on earnings, one of the biggest problems is that they have been known to be overly optimistic.

On September 21, 2001, despite an announcement of missed earnings and a shortfall in cash flow, Amazon.com was still trading at an unreal price-to-earnings ratio over 2000 at time when its stock was $192 a share. The only way to justify such a lofty price would be as if Amazon’s earnings were to grow at an annual rate of 80% for the next 10 years. When its price peaked at $225, Amazon’s market capitalization of $52 billion was larger than the economies of 125 countries. For a comparison, while today’s Amazon stock is traded over $500 a share, its price-to-earnings came down to around 400, albeit still high, at least a more reasonable level. This exaggerated valuation has since been explained as an example of “stock market myopia” — investors’ fixating on short-term earnings. Do I need to remind you what happened to the stock market after 2001?

Carl Icahn has argued that low interest rates have created “a new bubble,” caused by firms borrowing cheap money to fund acquisitions or to buy back stock in order to inflate their fundamentals. This warning echoes with Fink’s concern that “dividends paid out by S&P 500 companies in 2015 amounted to the highest proportion of their earnings since 2009 … Buybacks were up 27% over 12 months.” Still, both Fink’s longtime track record of promoting sustainable corporate growth, and Carl Icahn’s breaking up of Xerox and his criticism on BlackRock’s contributing to the high-yield bubble, should be commended for exemplifying the best “shareholders activism” at work.

Corporate shortsightedness is manifested by firms’ practice of providing short-term earnings guidance. However, firms that frequently issue quarterly earnings guidance also behave myopically. Further exacerbating this problem is the fact that managers are typically evaluated and compensated based on earnings goals, providing a perverse incentive to focus on producing short-term results. Moreover, if stock prices react to short-term earnings, managers can argue that they are doing their jobs in the name of “maximizing shareholders’ wealth.”

Since 2002, there has been a new movement led by the CEOs of top blue-chip companies such as GE GE 2.95% , Microsoft MSFT 1.63% , and Intel INTC 1.49% , to voluntarily stop providing earnings guidance. The intention was to relieve managers from being boxed into hitting short-term targets, and investors from being misguided. The critics claim, rather, that the firms are self-serving, especially since most of the firms that stopped issuing earnings guidance had already experienced poor earnings and stock performance.

A company’s earnings, measured under specific accounting standards and tax laws, are arbitrary at best, whereas cash flow, like the balance in a checking account, is an actual number and subject to little interpretation. Earnings are opinion and cash is a fact. In 1994, Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report, Warren Buffett wrote, “We define intrinsic value as the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. ” In his 2002 annual meeting, nearly 10 years later, Buffet echoed the same testament, “We’ll never buy a company when the managers talk about EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization). There are more frauds talking about EBITDA. That term has never appeared in the annual reports of companies like Wal-Mart, GE, and Microsoft. The fraudsters are trying to con you or they’re trying to con themselves.” In other words, the most celebrated investor’s message could not be clearer. In terms of value, it is what you can take out of a business that really counts, not the earnings reported by the company.

It is a realty that the public has an unusual fascination with short-term earnings. More than two thirds of stock price movements react to the quarterly earnings estimates. As a result, less than 15% of Wall Street analysts would even give cash flow estimates. However, whenever things take a turn for the worst — such as an economy going into a recession — stock market bubbles burst, and for those 25% of companies with negative fundamentals, the investors will resort back to quality; watching cash flow instead of quarterly earnings.

K. Christopher Ma is a professor of finance at Stetson University.