Explaining Quarterly Conference Calls

One of my most important jobs as a money manager is to keep up with the latest corporate news. During the first half of each calendar quarter, much of this work is done by listening to the quarterly conference calls companies conduct when the y report their quarterly earnings. Typically, a company will report its earnings via press release before the stock market opens in the morning or shortly after the market closes. A conference call is usually scheduled within a few hours of the press release, although sometimes companies report after the close hold their conference calls the next morning. I use a service named CallStreet to find out when the conference calls will occur. For the week of October 18, Call Street lists about 750 scheduled conference calls! There are about 30 by companies I care about for one reason or another, and I have 18 listed on my calendar. I’ll probably listen to 5 to 10, read transcripts of another 5 to 10, and rely on Wall Street research for the balance.