[mehwoot]

How is a company with a market cap of $32 billion making a $20 million quarterly profit proof that something is wrong with people who think that company might be overvalued? Stock ratings are not about how a company is doing but about how a company is doing relative to its price.

[ww2]

stock price is about the sum of all future cash flow. not current profit level. you can have different forecasts, but you cannot say the act of making forecast itself is nonsense.

[albertTJames]

Fair enough. Although, it was not a critic of how they are doing their job -which I am sure they do admirably- but on the nature of their metric and the inherent shortsightedness of their choices for mankind as a whole. An easy thought experiment would paint a very dark portrait of our future if the world was completely ruled by speculators: why would they favour risks and ideals? Why would they favour companies trying to change the status quo ? It takes courage, not planning and reason, to change the world for the best. It takes a strong philosophical stance to always keep looking at the horizon and have a measuring stick going above and beyond a comparison with more immediately viable solutions or even more profitable long term solutions. If the world was ruled by speculation, it would make more sense to promote fast food, dumb tv shows, fear, envy, and all sentiment inviting blind consumerism. Speculation has been a driving force for development in the past, now it is too dehumanised, algorithmically sound and too fast for any ideals to settle in.