Earnings & Coffee Time

With earnings season underway, both for US and Chinese companies, what I as an investor will be seeking is direction on how various companies plan to grow their business and assess their stock values. Some companies are very reasonably valued, others I definitely would like more info on. That's why I look forward to earnings seasons, aside from the possibility that a company or companies may beat analyst expectations. What I find a lot of companies, US and Chinese companies, could work on is beating investor expectations in terms of discussing their strategic direction.

As an example, last year I was listening to the webcast of the earnings release by Starbucks, a company that has a growing presence in China. I have to say that as an investor, I wasn't expecting a lot in terms of the company discussing its plans- most companies it seems don't go into much detail. But I was surprised by what I heard. Starbucks' presentation went into detail about its plans for China as well as the US and other countries. One of Starbucks' high level managers in China presented and expressed his view on market conditions and market acceptance for the brand and for coffee.

I'm hoping other companies will do as Starbucks did. Note- I'm not a current investor in Starbucks, but I use its example as just that, hoping that this earnings season will produce good info for investors as well as the analysts.