Guidance
Also: outlook
Guidance is the range or point a company publishes for a future period's sales, margin, profit, earnings per share or capital expenditure. It sets the reference against which results are judged; a change to it can move the share price more than the reported quarter. It is management's estimate, not a commitment, and its basis, adjusted or reported, constant currency or not, has to be read with the number.
Inside the company, guidance is usually derived from the budget and the latest reforecast, so a cut tends to follow weaker in-season sales that buying and store teams saw weeks earlier.
Lululemon lowered full-year guidance to net revenue of $10.350bn to $10.500bn and diluted EPS of $9.48 to $9.73, from $11.000bn to $11.150bn and $10.95 to $11.15 in June.