As Matt Levine puts it[0]: > In principle the companies are not supposed to give the investors material nonpublic information during these conversations. In pr

As Matt Levine puts it[0]: > In principle the companies are not supposed to give the investors material nonpublic information during these conversations. In practice, the conversations are not social calls. The analysts hope to get something out of them. It's rarely "our earnings are going to be way better than anyone expected." It might be something vaguer and squishier than that: hints, body language, a general sense of how management thinks about the world, its industry, its competition, its opportunities. Or it might be something much narrower and more specific: The company might help the analyst with particular line items in her model, adding nuance to her sophisticated understanding of its financial situation. Specific clarification on details of their new "business unit operating model" would be a relatively normal thing to talk about. It's not something that is a smoking gun for insider trading, but can be written off as just general clarification of an industry term of art. This would be a normal thing for business analysts to get a deeper dive into. 0: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-07-31/when-can-investors-talk-to-companies- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-07-31/when-c...