The Paragon of Earnings Prep

#investors #talent

Looking for more of a win this earnings cycle than just a participation trophy? We provide a few tactics to ensure that even if you’re not the paragon of earnings prep, you’re on the road to getting there, and to monetizing your positions more effectively.

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It is going to be a very busy earnings week. The Q4 prints tell us a lot about what to expect in the coming year. We’ll have financials to review along with company outlooks for the year and forward guides. Sometimes, a company says something like, “forget everything the last guy did, let’s talk about what the new guy is going to do.” This kind of clearing event often sounds like welcome news for long-term investors, but there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that the bar got moved to the right place. Miss the lowered expectation, and the stock’s a zombie. But clear it, and progress towards renewed credibility begins. Net, we spend a lot of time thinking about what to expect, but are we positioned well enough to capitalize?

A paragon is defined as “the model of excellence”. Interestingly,

• I found about 25 funds with the word Paragon in their title.

• As a word, I found that "paragon” use frequency ranks near #12,000, while the pedestrian but more well-understood “best” comes in at #285.

To me, this means that if you want to be the paragon of anything, you need to do a lot more than just giving it your best. And importantly, can all 25 funds really be the paragon?