"Morgan Stanley Solidly Beats Earnings Expectations". That's the headline posted on the CNBC website this morning. Fox Business posted a similar headline reading "Morgan Stanley's 2Q Profit Tops Expectations". Nearly identical headlines ran yesterday when Goldman Sachs reported its 2Q results. The CNBC headline claimed "Bank Earnings on a Roll as Goldman Tops the Street". But drill down into the actual results and you'll uncover a far less bullish story than what the headlines would indicate.
Morgan Stanley, it turns out did beat analyst expectations on both the top and bottom line. These were significantly lowered expectations, of course, based upon careful if not clever guidance of the company's CFO. But the numbers "beat" nonetheless. However, by all more traditional measures, Morgan Stanley had a terrible quarter. Top line revenues fell by $840 million from the same quarter a year earlier. A nearly 10% decline in revenue is hardly a reason to celebrate. Goldman's top line fell by $1.14 billion on a year over year basis, for a decline of 12.5%. The bottom line for Morgan Stanley was even worse than its revenue performance. Morgan's net income fell 12%, despite significant cost cutting.
So how do stories like this get spun as "Morgan Stanley Solidly Beats Earnings Expectations"? Welcome to the new Wall Street. With investors trying to game the system in a through the looking glass economy, traders are solidly focused on earnings "beats" and misses. It's a desperate attempt to gain a trading advantage in markets that seldom make sense to anyone. The trouble is, an earnings beat tells us very little about the company's fundamental earnings performance or the growth trajectory of its business. It simply tells us about the skill of the CFO in managing earnings guidance. But year over year revenue and earnings performance tell us something very different. They tell us about the viability of the company's business plan, how customers are responding to the company's outreach and how the company is executing on its profit plan internally. Data points investors should be keenly aware of if they own the stock.
In the seven years following the Great Recession, CFOs have turned gaming earnings expectations into an art. They know that conservative guidance gives the company a lower bar to hurdle in reporting its results. And to the extent they "beat", well... Morgan Stanley stock is up 2% as of this writing.
