A Critical Examination Of Earnings

A recent article made us think about the importance of definitions. The article states: "After all, in the long-run stocks are fundamentally driven by earnings and expectations for earnings growth." While we agree in part with this statement, we bet most people reading the article automatically think of earnings as net income and EPS. In reality, "earnings" is often used loosely to relate more to cash flow, which is a more important driver of stock price than accounting earnings. Remember, accounting numbers can be distorted much more easily than cash flow. There is another factor that is equally, if not more important, that is the required return. In increase in the required return on the market or a stock can often have a large impact on stock prices.