Guidance
Also known as: forward guidance
Guidance is a company's own forecast for its future financial results, usually or for the next quarter or year, given by management alongside its regular . It reflects what the company itself expects to happen, based on the , bookings, and demand it can already see.
Guidance is not a guarantee. Management has every incentive to sound confident, and forecasts can be wrong in either direction, a company can guide conservatively and then beat its own number, or guide optimistically and miss it. Investors watch guidance closely anyway, since it's the most direct signal a company gives about what it expects next, and whether guidance gets raised, met, or cut over time says a lot about whether a business is accelerating or slowing down.