Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 491 posts

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#411

Post by barbazoo »

donavanm wrote: post #87
alexpotato wrote: post #69

One of my favorite stories about logistics and quarterly earnings deadlines (from when I worked at a pharmaceutical company: "In our business, a truckload of various drugs can easily reach $10-$15 million. Now, if that truck arrives at the depot at 11:59pm March 31st then it's first quarter earnings. If it arrives at 12:01am April 1st then it's second quarter earnings. $15 million is a BIG shortfall, even for us, so…

I worked at a previous listed company where a single $6MM order of hardware being pushed out a week made quarterly p&l positive. Im absolutely sure the same situation occurred every other quarter as well in some part of the business I didnt see.

Sounds more realistic than a low level truck driver running stop signs.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#412

Post by barbazoo »

clickety_clack wrote: post #156

24/7 trading sounds like a nightmare. “Your retirement savings crashed 30% because there wasn’t enough liquidity to cover a 3am panic over non-news”.

> “Your retirement savings crashed 30% because there wasn’t enough liquidity to cover a 3am panic over non-news”

I don't understand what that means so I'm guessing it doesn't apply to retirement savings in general. Does "liquidity to cover" imply that one made a bet that didn't work out?

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#413

Post by xxpor »

yalogin wrote: post #392

Why do we want to make the stock market mimic the crypto market? What need is the 24/7 trading solving? Just for hft companies to make more money? Seems like a genuine reason to diversify to Europe and Asian markets

As a practical matter as a "normal person" who just wants to rebalance/do a deposit/withdraw every so often, the market only being open 6:30 AM-1 PM on the west coast is very annoying.

6:30 AM to say 10 PM would solve a lot of those issues though without needing to go 24/7 (unless you work night shift...)

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#414

Post by kortilla »

plussed_reader wrote: post #176
jandrewrogers wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of it, though, is that it would recover almost immediately as systems arbitrage an obviously stupid situation.

But on what time scale? Before a few connected entities make a profit or after?

But that doesn’t matter to your retirement. Don’t sell your retirement at 3am and the liquidity at 3am isn’t your problem.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#415

Post by titanomachy »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #207
plussed_reader wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But on what time scale? Before a few connected entities make a profit or after?

The time scale is at least a thousand times faster than necessary for your retirement savings to be safe. The problem of investment companies selling stupidly at 3am solves itself as they either learn or go bankrupt. And the counterparties making money off those dumb moves don't need to be 'connected'.

Not if I retire 300 times per minute

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#416

Post by kortilla »

bastawhiz wrote: post #357
anon291 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial illiteracy will be the end of democracy

There's nothing wrong with not retail trading. In fact, most people shouldn't be doing it.

You missed the point of that comment. Nobody at your bank is trading for you or themselves at 3am.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#417

Post by kortilla »

svnt wrote: post #238
jandrewrogers wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of it, though, is that it would recover almost immediately as systems arbitrage an obviously stupid situation.

No, they stop hunt their way to depressed prices where they then buy anticipating the recovery while you closed out your “safe” retirement positions at -15%.

You don’t put stop losses on retirement positions. That’s an incredibly dumb thing to do for long term investors.

It’s literally a “sell low” policy.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#418

Post by lumost »

bushbaba wrote: post #408
giancarlostoro wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if companies reported dollars in and dollars out live to shareholders at least we would have an idea of how the company is doing in a general sense. A former manager used to run his own company, it was a satellite internet company sometime in the 2000s, they were going into the negative, so they had a big TV in the office, showing everyday what was coming in, and how much they made vs how much they owed. They did i…

Can motivate the employees to jump ship. Often time as an employee you are impacted dis proportionately on the downside than the upside.

Smart employees understand this dynamic. When leadership hides information - it always means its bad. The first thing I noticed when I had a bout of bad employers was that they claimed "we can't share financial information because of XYZ investor/legal reason."

Those startups all had major financial problems within 6 months to 2 years. Management has strong incentives to hide bad information from employees.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#419

Post by snowwrestler »

alexpotato wrote: post #69

One of my favorite stories about logistics and quarterly earnings deadlines (from when I worked at a pharmaceutical company: "In our business, a truckload of various drugs can easily reach $10-$15 million. Now, if that truck arrives at the depot at 11:59pm March 31st then it's first quarter earnings. If it arrives at 12:01am April 1st then it's second quarter earnings. $15 million is a BIG shortfall, even for us, so…

To be fair, this is a side effect of financial deadlines in general. A business reporting annually will still try to beat that deadline right up to the last second.

In this particular example a single truckload would be less significant annually than quarterly though.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#420

Post by lelandfe »

kaiwenwang wrote: post #346
dragonwriter wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is cash based accounting, revenue and expenses are booked when the money changes hands. If it is accrual-based acocunting, it takes place when the event legal triggering the change of ownership of goods in the transaction takes place, which depends on the shipping terms, which could be anywhere from when it is available for the buyer’s transport agent to pick up at the seller’s facility (EXW) to when it is deli…

Yes, to add on - - incoterms ( https://www.dhl.com/content/dam/dhl/global/dhl-global-forwar... ) - cash flow statement v. income statement (accurals)

Those diagrams of risk vs cost bared are helpful.
Post reply on HN