Stupidity is contagious. It gets us all from time to time. Even respectable companies can catch it. As I do every week, let's take a look at five dumb financial events this week that may make your head spin.
1. eBay: three months or three years
eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY ) delivered what it calls a "three-year roadmap for growth" on Wednesday, giving investors a glimpse at the $10 billion to $12 billion in revenue that the company expects to be ringing up come 2011.
Naturally, I don't have a beef with companies peeling back the curtain to give shareholders a long-term view of things. Shortly after Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI ) completed last year's merger between Sirius and XM, it helped ease fears by providing a five-year outlook.
However, eBay tops this week's list because it provided a three-year outlook, just two months after it broke from its annual rite of providing guidance for the year ahead.
"The uncertain and unprecedented economic environment, coupled with the volatile currency movement, make it difficult to provide any meaningful outlook beyond the first quarter," the company said during its fourth-quarter conference call.
Really? So eBay could only look out three months two years ago, but now it can stand on a summit and look all the way out to 2011? That's unreal!
2. You can't be Sirius?
Remember that five-year projection at Sirius XM? It's toast, too. Two days after positing its first quarter of positive pro forma adjusted income, the company decided to withdraw its subscriber and revenue guidance. It is only sticking to its original call of generating $300 million in EBITDA for all of 2009.
So it's like eBay and Sirius are passing ships, yet they both wind up laying anchor at Port Dumbville. The problem with Sirius XM is that we're already through more than 75% of the current quarter. How can it not know?
Then again, maybe it's right in not trusting its own judgment. In September, it thought it would close out 2008 with 19.5 million subscribers. In November, it scaled its target down to 19.1 million accounts. It was still too high. Sirius XM wound up adding less than half of the subscribers during the quarter that it thought it would in early November. (But check out how Sirius also made this week's "Smartest" list.)
3. Now that's just Goofy
Disney (NYSE: DIS ) finally took the wraps off the D23 product that it had been quietly building up in recent weeks. It turns out to be Disney's first official community of Disney fans.
That's not dumb. That's genius. It's about time that the family entertainment giant reach out to the masses with an interactive hub of --
What's that? Disney is charging $75 a year for what is essentially a slick quarterly magazine, a trinket, and a spot on a mailing list for Disney's marketing team? Oh dear.
D23 will still find an audience. Unfortunately, it will be a niche audience. Instead of throwing out a wider net and creating a free social network or coming through with a more recession-sensitive pricing strategy, D23 appears headed in the same direction as other Disney membership programs like Magic Kingdom Club, Disney Club, and the short-lived Virtual Magic Kingdom.
4. Take-Two and call me in the mourning
I've got a video game concept. I call it Grand Theft Auto V: Shareholder City. Investors buy a stake in Take-Two Interactive (Nasdaq: TTWO ) . They believe the company when executives claim that a $26-a-share buyout offer from Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS ) is too low this past summer. Then they suffer the precipitous share plunge of a company that sorely overestimated its earnings potential once Grand Theft Auto IV sales dried up.
The latest disappointing chapter in this game came on Wednesday, when shares fell deeper into the single digits after the company warned of a soft near-term outlook.
I know I was one of the saps who believed the company, when it held out for more. These days, even a buyout at half of EA's original offer price would be welcome.
5. Earl of pearls
Upscale jeweler Tiffany (NYSE: TIF ) has been hit hard in this economic downturn. Now it's taking it out on its portfolio of concepts. The retailer is shutting down its Iridesse chain of pearl jewelry stores. An entire store based on pearl-based bling? You got it!
The 16-store concept clearly never got very far. I guess that's why Tiffany is shucking Iridesse. Then again, after watching high-end jewelers like Tiffany and Blue Nile (Nasdaq: NILE ) get slammed over the holidays, maybe this isn't the best time to measure an upscale concept's viability.
Let's beat the dumb drum:
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