conference calls

[LC]

how much stock do you guys put in them? do you listen to them at all?

 

i feel like it's just a pony show put on for both parties and not worth the brain damage trying to delve through all the cryptic nuances of canned management responses.

 

i've found value in them for really small, off-the-radar companies and something like Fiat. in both cases management doesn't seem to give a #&(# and is willing to be blunt and candid. the common thread being when management has no incentive to add layers of nuance to shade the truth.

[eclecticvalue]

They are great for small-mid cap companies, when it comes to getting updates on certain issues. Most of the time I read the transcripts, since it is faster to read rather than listen for me.

[jawn619]

they're good for finding out information that they don't disclose in their financials

[Hielko]

I think it is usually worth it to read the Q&A section in the transcript.

[merkhet]

In my opinion, they're fantastic for learning qualitative things that you might not learn otherwise.

[feynmanresearch]

I think you can learn a lot by listening to them, versus just reading the transcript. If you have listened to enough of them, you can begin to tell which management team is being honest or who's bullshitting

[Travis Wiedower]

+whatever. If I'm seriously considering investing in a company I'll listen/read the last few years worth of calls. One thing I think these are especially good for is getting management's outlook for the next 1-3 years (and I don't necessarily mean guidance, just general stuff). If I listen to calls from 2-3 years ago I'll take note of predictions/outlooks they made and then see how it came out. Good way to judge how conservative or aggressive they think.

[berkshire101]

I enjoy reading the transcripts vs the calls.  Who has time to spend 30 to 90 mins listening when you can speed read through one in 5-10 minutes?

 

The real benefit for me is reading multiple years worth of transcripts to see how the company is developing, like what story it's telling.  And it gives me a better perspective of how the industry is changing overtime, how the company is reacting to those changes, etc.

 

I find that smaller companies tend to talk more about longer-term objectives.  You get better insight into the industry too.  Larger companies have too many things going on that mostly everything is so high level.