• jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Publicly traded companies have to continually make more money than they did last month, last quarter, same time last year.

    Failing to do so means they are somehow “losing” money that is “rightfully owed” to them and the stock market punishes them.

    It doesn’t matter if you’re profitable or not, so long as you’re continually making more money.

    • Dem Bosain@midwest.social
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      18 hours ago

      It’s not only “more”. The company I work for had “record profits, far and beyond anything we were expecting” in 2021. In 2022, we were told that the company made more than in 2021, but didn’t meet the earnings projections. That’s still record profits, but phrased like a loss.

      Not only must the line go up, but it has to go up faster than it did before. Nothing less than exponential growth.

    • vithigar@lemmy.ca
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      20 hours ago

      It goes a layer further than that even. If the rate at which that growth is happening isn’t itself growing then investors start getting nervous.