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I don't understand how/why a publicly traded company like Twitter should be allowed to hide such an important piece of data from the public and from shareholder
by t0mbstone 12y ago
I don't understand how/why a publicly traded company like Twitter should be allowed to hide such an important piece of data from the public and from shareholders?
- oddevan 12y agoIt's less to do with hiding data from the public and more along the lines of controlling the data so that no one in the company gets it before the public (and thus allowing said person inside the company to trade company stock on insider information).
- mjmahone17 12y agoIsn't this solved with trading windows, which you only open up right after earnings calls? Or am I missing something?
- eldavido 12y agoThose don't apply to the general public. The problem is insider gets info -> calls his brother-in-law -> brother-in-law trades on early info. Illegal, but lucrative.
- kingryan 12y agoIf you're classified as an "insider" then you can't even trade in the trading windows without a 10b5-1 plan. So at TWTR (I'm a former employee) knowing things like the MAU would probably make you an insider, which means you can only sell on a plan. Not knowing the MAU is a blessing in this case.
- pc86 12y agoAs mathattack said, public companies are required to disclose this type of information to the public all at once. If I work at Twitter and tell you that our MAU dropped 5% this week, and earnings is in two weeks, you could short the stock and make a lot of money. It's to prevent this type of scenario. The data is private until it's released to everyone simultaneously.
- benihana 12y agoI'm sure they don't. The issue isn't that they're hiding it, the issue is that every employee had access to it before the public did. From now on, most employees will learn what the MAUs are the same time the public does.