[lamontcg]

I don't think it is inherent to publicly traded companies, but it certainly seems to be inherent to our publicly traded companies. Most of the shareholders are: gamblers chasing fashion looking for quick profits, management insiders that want to pump the stock and their bonuses before they change jobs in ~5 years, or index funds that buy stock no matter what.

There's very few investors bothering to understand how to value a company and nobody cares about a businesses cost of capital or its return on invested capital.

[Zigurd]

Investors value lack of volatility. This is a kind of impedance mismatch between investor decisions, how management is evaluated, and the health of enterprises over longer (but not much longer) time periods. Especially in publicly traded companies.

This happens because of how US rules apply to profit, dividends, reporting periods, etc. The rules and incentives could be changed.