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By ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL Read those CEO shareholder letters! Leaders who keep their word tend to run more efficient, productive, and successful companies. If “language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden,” as the Austrian journalist Karl Kraus said, investors ought to pay better attention to the way CEOs, the stewards of their capital, …

Edited by ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL A study of the clarity of CEO letters finds a link between a lack of candor and poor financial performance. Those who bemoan the lack of warnings leading up to the financial crisis would have done well to peruse the pre-crisis CEO letters from the firms at the center of …

By ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL IN THE MIDST OF THE BUSY ANNUAL-MEETING season, when chief executives are out in force, it’s important to watch not just what they do, but what they say. Perhaps one of the best ways to gauge how well our corporate leaders are “talking the talk” is through the much-maligned and oft-ignored …

Edited by ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL WOULD THAT WE HAD LISTENED TO Warren Buffett seven years ago when he warned that derivatives were “financial weapons of mass destruction.” Last year was Berkshire-Hathaway’s worst since Buffett took over, but the Oracle of Omaha …more

By ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL AN INVESTOR MIGHT WELL BE EXCUSED FOR SKIPPING over the sometimes impenetrable CEO letters to shareholders — a fixture of the annual report — and heading straight for the financials. But according to one expert, that would be a mistake. Not only are the letters a way to understand a company’s …

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True or false? If a CEO wants to lie about the performance of his company, trusting investors have no real way of divining the real story. One might be quick to answer true, given the recent disclosures by the SEC in charging companies such as HealthSouth and its founder, Richard Scrushy, with massive accounting fraud, …

True or false? If a CEO wants to lie about the performance of his company, trusting investors have no real way of divining the real story. One might be quick to answer true, given the recent disclosures by the SEC in charging companies such as HealthSouth and its founder, Richard Scrushy, with massive accounting fraud, …