Fuchs: Google earnings coverage fails

TheStreet.com’s Marek Fuchs points out Saturday that coverage this past week of Google’s earnings failed to provide historical context in that it didn’t tell investors that the company doesn’t provide earnings guidance and that many of the stories failed to indicate the company’s performance in beating analyst estimates.

Fuchs wrote, “As you probably know, however, The Business Press Maven is constantly whining about how this paint-by-the-numbers reporting leaves investors unenlightened about historical perspective.

“And if historical perspective is not in a story about a quarterly earnings reports, the savvy investor should realize that they are getting an incomplete look at what the numbers mean.

“Here, Investors Business Daily went halfway. They told us that Google had only disappointed once, and even let us know when that was. Good work.

“Now … why, if they did that, is their news desk currently crying into their keyboards over the ‘Back of the Hand’ that I gave them?

“Easy — the reporter did not give us what, in the end, qualifies a legitimate better-than-expected. To wit: did the company tweak numbers in the days and weeks leading up to the announcement? Yes or no? Are they managing expectations like a deranged stage parent (or, in my case, softball dad) so that they can appear to surpass them? Yes or no? Answer, plebe, answer!”

Read more here.