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Next Week's Earnings Preview: The Roller Coaster Descends

I, for one, am opposed to the ritual of having corporations reporting earnings on announced dates. The only requirement should be that the reports should be no later than a specific period of time after the quarters. This practice only feeds into speculation in the options markets and encourages manipulation in the stocks. The only requirement should be that companies report after the markets close and they should not allow after market trading or pre-market trading on and after announcement days to allow all interested parties to have a chance to hear the report and digest it's significance so that there is a level playing field. Reports should be made as soon as they are available. Companies should warn of upcoming surpises to reasonalby expected results as early as the approximate magnitue can be determined and again the off market trading should be limited after these announcements until the public can digest the information. Further I don't think it serves the best interest of investors for companies to give guidance beyond what which they can be reasonably certain and that isn't very much. The notion that companies produce smooth quarter to quarter earnings is false and it encourages all kinds of creative accounting to produce these "to the penny figures". All this is a child of Wall St. analyst and the average investor is swindled into trading on this artificial scenario. Vic