§ Fundamental
Management guidance
Glossary version 2026-07-12.v1 · reviewed July 12, 2026
guidance
A company’s own forward-looking outlook for revenue, profit, margins, spending, or other metrics. It is useful evidence about management expectations but is not a filed historical fact.
Management guidance communicates what company leaders currently expect for a future period. The range, metric definition, date, and later revisions all matter. Reports compare guidance with independent forecasts and analyst consensus, adopt or rebut each material guided figure explicitly, and never treat management’s outlook as an authoritative valuation target.