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

431–440 of 491 posts

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#431

Post by larkost »

hannasanarion wrote: post #365
fc417fc802 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone is legally required to share it then we're all in the same boat.

Financials aren't like technology or IP where having the information open to all (perhaps with limited monopolies on usage a la patents) is essentially for the betterment of all mankind, they can be more like order of battle in a war zone. If your competitors know that your Florida subsidiary is running inefficiently and being subsidized by your successful business elsewhere, they can target their own operations in F…

Isn't this exactly what we should want from a market system? If your division in Florida is inefficient, then from the market perspective we should absolutely want competitors to enter the market and crush them.

I think the problem is that people have gotten so used to seeing capitalism from the companies' perspective (i.e.: profits good), and forgot that it is supposed to be all about the collective good. So if you think sustained high profits are good... then you have missed the whole point (the market should always be driving them towards near-zero).

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#432

Post by nickff »

runarberg wrote: post #136
nickff wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources to back up your feelings? I’m basing my comments on what I’ve read about the matter from a variety of former public company CEOs, CFOs, and COOs.

I am coming to this from a perspective of a worker who used to get quarterly options of the public company I worked for, and I just cannot for the life of me sympathize with a company complaining that it can only afford to gather the information to calculate the worth of the stocks they are paying me in two times a year. I don‘t care how much it costs them. If you are gonna be paying and trading in stocks, I expect y…

I understand your view, and agree that transparency is good, but "the work required" is largely preventing and defending against lawsuits by plaintiff lawyers, and those lawsuits cannot possibly benefit the shareholders (because whether the suit is won, lost, or settled, the money all goes from one pocket to another, with a cut going to the lawyers).

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#433

Post by dlenski »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #340
dlenski wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm extremely skeptical about this. 24/7 trading will definitely burn a lot of extra energy in datacenters, make some speculators a little richer, and make a LOT of retail investors nervous… But what actual real-world problem will it solve ? I for one am skeptical that more liquidity is always good. I think that having achieved $0.01 spreads, we're well-past the point of diminishing returns with high-frequency tradin…

>But what actual real-world problem will it solve? Having US markets open during the rest of the world's business day.

Okay, what problem does that solve?

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#434

Post by dlenski »

pembrook wrote: post #303
dlenski wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm extremely skeptical about this. 24/7 trading will definitely burn a lot of extra energy in datacenters, make some speculators a little richer, and make a LOT of retail investors nervous… But what actual real-world problem will it solve ? I for one am skeptical that more liquidity is always good. I think that having achieved $0.01 spreads, we're well-past the point of diminishing returns with high-frequency tradin…

> But what actual real-world problem will it solve? I know most Americans don't travel, but are you aware that timezones exist and there's an entire world outside the US that also invests in US companies? Why do you think global companies want to list in US capital markets instead of their own? Being the world's most desirable capital markets is a massive boon for the US economy and 24/7 trading will only accelerate…

> I know most Americans don't travel, but are you aware that timezones exist and there's an entire world outside the US that also invests in US companies?

Not only am I dimly aware of the existence of these not-the-US places, but I actually live in not-the-US.

I believe I'm dimly aware of the concept of a timezone too, yeah. https://bugs.python.org/issue35829#msg385309

> Being the world's most desirable capital markets is a massive boon for the US economy and 24/7 trading will only accelerate this trend.

So, no downsides or diminishing returns to offering 24/7 trading?

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#435

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

vasco wrote: post #241
gzread wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can account a transaction that's been placed but not fulfilled. I think when someone orders $15m of goods, you can immediately book $15m accounts receivable (asset) and $15m goods owed (liability) as soon as you have the expectation it will happen. If the transaction falls through, you delete them.

There's no deleting anything in accounting.

As someone with a partner who’s an accountant, I love seeing technologists be confidently wrong about accounting fundamentals vs. the type of technicalities that she has to deal with. Your comment highlights the absurdity of their confidence; kudos.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#436

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #228
ang_cire wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollars/receivables in and dollars/deliverables out is just a question of rate, unless I'm missing something. If a 10 billion dollar company has a per-second dollar out/in rate of $1,000,000 due to actual organic business, a company with $2,000,000 can set up an LLC it buys and sells from, and legally 'swap' $1,000,000 a second back and forth in services "bought and sold" to mimic the appearance of the $10B company,…

I'm fairly certain you're describing fraud.

The difference between fraud and not fraud is if you can reach an agreement with auditors that it’s not fraud.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#437

Post by runarberg »

nickff wrote: post #432
runarberg wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am coming to this from a perspective of a worker who used to get quarterly options of the public company I worked for, and I just cannot for the life of me sympathize with a company complaining that it can only afford to gather the information to calculate the worth of the stocks they are paying me in two times a year. I don‘t care how much it costs them. If you are gonna be paying and trading in stocks, I expect y…

I understand your view, and agree that transparency is good, but "the work required" is largely preventing and defending against lawsuits by plaintiff lawyers, and those lawsuits cannot possibly benefit the shareholders (because whether the suit is won, lost, or settled, the money all goes from one pocket to another, with a cut going to the lawyers).

This may sound rough, but I don’t care about shareholders. In fact I consider them my enemy, or at least my class-enemy. Whenever they make money off of the shares of the company I work for, I consider that exploitation, and I want them to stop doing that. I also want them to stop paying me in stocks, and I want my—and my fellow worker’s—pension funds to stop trading in stocks. My shareholders are my exploiters and my enemy and my pension fund should not be my exploiter nor my enemy.

But while we live in this system which forces stocks onto me, and I have no say in the matter, I want it as transparent as possible, and I don‘t care how much it costs my enemies.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#438

Post by CyberDildonics »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #390
munificent wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All data that is externally visible about a public company will be consumed by traders and used to inform their market behavior. Companies know this, thus every action they perform that affects an externally visible number is calculated both for the actual intent of the action, and how that action effects the number and the consequent market behavior. This is why you see all sorts of moves that aren't strictly helpfu…

in other words, they know how data impacts stock price and do their best to game the data.

The data is how much money do you make in profit, companies try to game that already.

Re: US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement

#440

Post by robocat »

lumost wrote: post #418
bushbaba wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most startups fail - it's almost definitional.

Trying to connect the dots like you are attempting to, is a foolish game.

Post reply on HN