Earlier today, Pepsi did what few companies will do this quarter: beat both the top ($15.9BN, vs exp. $15.8BN) and the bottom line ($1.32, vs Exp. $1.24) without much use of every accounting gimmick under the sun (ahem Alcoa [5]). The cherry on top: it also raised it earnings forecast for the year from 7% to 8%, pushing shares higher 2.2% in premarket trading.
What Pepsi did, unlike all other companies crushed by the soaring dollar, is that while the maker of Pepsi cola, Lay's potato chips and Gatorade was also hurt by weakening currencies, from the euro to the Brazilian real, Pepsi was able to push through price increases to keep revenue stable, while it continued to slash costs: in raising prices while firing people.
There is nothing wrong with that, Capitalism 101.
Solid results. What did catch our atention was Pepsi's brilliant dumbing down of its 10-Q and admission that it knows very well who its main "investor base" is these days, namely "attention-deficited", 17-year-old hedge fund managers [6](and algos of course), who need a simple, portable story on which to BTFD (or BTFATH).
Because when you know precisely who your New Normal target audience is, this is how [7]you should always lay out your resuts:
[8]
