In particular, the company trumpeted its ability to earn record profits and revenues despite the ongoing economic slowdown. The overall conference call experience is interesting. It is unusual to have such direct access to the leaders of a major company. The information contained can be largely understood to be the same as will be in the annual report, so he call is essentially a preview of that document. The depth and breadth of the information provided is exceptional -- it would take hours to research that information independently. For example, there is information on some of the back-end tactics that the company has undertaken in order to improve its performance and profitability -- information that because of its lack of visibility seldom finds its way into the business press. The call is relatively formal in nature, however. The call and the messages that the company sends in the call, are carefully controlled. Even Mr. Schultz talking about the success of the company in the past year is flat and emotionless. Some of the explanations were long and detailed -- concision was not a big factor in this call.

The questions come in from analysts, and this are often focused on issues that the different analysts have with respect to the company. The analysts tend to be focused on financial performance and metrics. Some of the questions referred to guidance for the coming fiscal year, but the company was generally not forthcoming with respect to specific details. Each question was generally followed by a long explanation from the firm's executives. For the most part,...

Among the issues raised were the price points that the company wanted to set, and the company's relationship with Kraft, something that is subject to considerable difficulty at present.
Overall, the conference call was good. The company was focused on the specific elements of the firm's performance that were positive. Emphasis was placed on the different successes at the firm over the past year, and on some of the outlook elements that are positive. Although the U.S. is the company's largest market, a considerable amount of attention was paid to international markets. As well, new products such as the VIA received considerable attention at this call as well. This implies a focus on the newer aspects of the company's business and on forward growth, as the old drivers of growth were seldom discussed.

During the pre-prepared statements section of the call, the casual investor could gain substantial knowledge about the company's recent performance and why that performance occurred. The forward-looking statements would give an indication as to why the company is optimistic about its future prospects. The question and answer component of the conference call was drier and more specific to institutional investors. The questions were more detailed and with respect to minute segments of the company's operations. For the casual investor with a diversified portfolio, this is perhaps not as desirable as the information that was found in the beginning of the conference call.