Glossarytaught in M8.01, M5.06
Guidance
Also called management guidance, outlook.
A company's own forecast of its coming performance, whether formal and numeric or informal and directional.
Guidance is a commitment as much as a prediction, and companies manage toward it, so the pattern of beats and misses is informative. A firm that beats its own guidance by a small margin every quarter is managing expectations. Nobody in the market is being surprised.
Changes in guidance matter more than their level. A company raising a growth range from 8% to 10% has said something; one reiterating a range for the fourth consecutive quarter has said something else.
Some sectors guide and some don't. Absence isn't evasion.
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