The Tyranny Of Earnings (C)(MER)(IBM)

After Citigroup (C) and Merrill Lynch (MER) have announced their earnings, Wall St. will probably see what it expected. The estimates for write-offs, lay-offs, and new capital infusions are already out there.

Tech sector numbers may come in better than expected. IBM (IBM) and SAP (SAP) indicated that revenue outside the US has been strong enough to help revenue improvement. That means that Oracle (ORCL) and Microsoft (MSFT) could do well.

Car companies, home builders, airlines, and retailers will all do poorly. Consumer goods companies like P&G (PG) will probably do relatively well.

The fact remains that US investing is still hostage to the most recent set of numbers. The system has been criticized over the years but nothing has changed. The last set of numbers for operations and forecasts for the next quarter are the only set of numbers.

What investors will not hear on the Citigroup or IBM or Merrill conference calls is where the companies will be in five years. In many ways that is a guess, but it is a guess that the companies spend countless hours reviewing. It is one that is presented to the boards. It drives capital spending, hiring, and R&D. For some companies, like Big Pharma, the five year plan is much more important than anything the company can say about the last quarter.

The most important thing large companies know, how they expect to do over the next several years, including any economic downturn, is the one thing the market never hears.

Five years from now Citigroup may have turned itself around enough for the stock to be $100. It has gone up that much over a similar period before. But, the CEO of Citi is not likely to say much about his plans. Not any more than a few sentences about what he hope that firm can do.

All of the other conference calls and PRs this quarter will read about the same.

Douglas A. McIntyre