capital markets Archives - The Grassy Road

Companies stop giving guidance – is this a good or a bad move?

In the world of running a public company one of the critical skills a CEO/CFO team used to have to have was the ability to set guidance for the "Street" - that is the sell side analysts who cover their stock and publish research and guidance to investors.Guidance was typically top line and bottom line, revenue and earnings and the street would come up with a consensus on what EPS (earnings per share) the company would earn in the following quarters - often based on complex models developed in the [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:19:39-08:00February 10, 2009|Boards|0 Comments

Risking our best talent

Wall Street will be facing a talent retention challenge very shortly unless the bonus issue is elegantly handled this year.Over the past week the news has been full of "outrage" and questions about whether bankers should get their bonuses this year. Talk of large chunks of the bailout going to top bankers and class-warfare type language.But unfortunately this problem is not as simple as the government, or the "public" controlling the pay of an industry they don't understand. I'm a pretty hard-core democrat and yet when I hear talk of [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:21:18-08:00November 17, 2008|Boards|4 Comments

Valley self absorption?

It would seem that we experienced yesterday differently than our silicon valley brethren. I was surprised to see a Valleywag post that the discussion of the day was self absorbed as usual - about user interface and how tech can make money, not about the impact of the meltdown on the lives of people on both coasts.And Kara Swisher at Boomtown who said "Last week, one of the things that struck me about the coverage of the two main tech conferences devoted to start-ups, DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, was the almost [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:23:35-08:00September 16, 2008|Boards|0 Comments

The Downside to Innovation

Being a small, nimble technology company, innovation has to be integral to our daily lives. For us to build a successful company we know that we have to constantly discover new ways to deliver our service, improve client experiences, and exploit needs in the marketplace.When you innovate, however, everyone needs to be mindful of the risks and downsides. As the innovating firm: are you making a bet on a new feature that the market can’t support? Could the money spent on sales people be used to make the product better? [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:32:51-08:00December 6, 2007|Career Advice|0 Comments

Thomson-Reuters Merger Will Open Up the Industry

The recent articles highlighting the anti-trust scrutiny by the EU of the pending merger of Thomson and Reuters have uncovered tremendous opportunities for growth and change in the investment research technology space. Here is some sub-text worth watching as the merger unfolds:- Putting the bullseye on Bloomberg: From the beginning, it has been apparent that TF-Reuters were coming together to target Bloomberg’s desktop market share. The main speculation has been focused on how Bloomberg will react to a pending attack on its core business, but an under reported aspect of [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:34:12-08:00November 26, 2007|My Personal Journey|0 Comments