It seems like an obvious efficiency win: announce your results and host your Capital Markets Day on the same day. One event, one audience, one travel budget. Tick everything off the calendar at once. Investors and analysts make the trip once, not twice.
The logic is appealing. The reality, according to Inderes’ Head of Research Antti Viljakainen, is a different story entirely.
“These are two fundamentally different conversations.”
Earnings calls are about the last 90 days. CMDs are about the next three to five years. Merging them doesn’t create a more efficient event — it creates a fractured one, where the audience is constantly switching context and neither message lands with the force it deserves.
Two conversations that don’t belong together
The core problem is one of cognitive load. Investors attending a results day arrive primed for specific questions: did the company hit guidance? What’s the outlook for next quarter? How are margins trending? These are the questions analysts need to answer before they can update their models and communicate with their own clients.
A Capital Markets Day demands something entirely different. It asks the audience to set aside short-term noise, zoom out to a multi-year horizon, and engage with strategic priorities, competitive positioning, and long-term financial targets. That shift doesn’t happen naturally — and it certainly doesn’t happen quickly.
When both agendas are crammed into one day, neither gets the attention it requires.
The problem with a bad quarter
There’s another risk that often goes unacknowledged: what happens when the results themselves are disappointing?
“A bad quarter actively undermines your strategic credibility.”
When quarterly performance falls short, investors and analysts don’t switch off their scepticism when the CMD presentation begins. They carry it into the room. Long-term targets get scrutinised through the lens of near-term underperformance. The strategic story becomes harder to tell — and harder to believe.
Even a neutral quarter can create noise. Any deviation from expectations becomes a distraction, a thread that gets pulled during Q&A at the expense of the strategic discussion you spent months preparing.
Analysts don’t arrive ready to listen
On a results day, sell-side analysts are working. They’re processing numbers, updating models, writing notes, and fielding calls from portfolio managers. The hours before, during, and after an earnings release are among the busiest in an analyst’s calendar.
Asking those same analysts to then shift into CMD mode — to absorb long-term strategy, ask considered questions, and engage meaningfully with management — is asking a lot. Most will struggle to give the strategic content the attention it deserves. Some will leave early. Some won’t fully arrive at all, mentally speaking.
The result is a room that looks full but isn’t really present.
Competing for attention on results day
Earnings seasons are busy for a reason. Multiple companies announce simultaneously, competing for the same pool of analyst and investor attention. Hosting your CMD on a results day doesn’t just compete with your own earnings announcement — it competes with every other announcement happening that day.
Attendance suffers. People who do show up may be distracted. Focus is divided. The room you imagined — engaged, attentive, strategically curious — is unlikely to materialise in practice.
When and how to host a CMD that actually works
The good news is that with some deliberate planning, a Capital Markets Day can be genuinely effective. Viljakainen’s recommendations:
Timing: Aim for May or June, September, or late November or December. Avoid peak earnings announcement dates and periods when your sector clusters its reporting.
Day of the week: Tuesday through Thursday. Mondays are for travel and catching up; Fridays, people are already leaving.
Logistics: Give people enough advance notice to plan travel. Include a webcast for those who can’t attend in person — this isn’t a concession, it’s good practice.
Content and delivery: Invest in clear, memorable messaging. Partner with professionals who understand the IR context. Rehearse. The strategic narrative you present at a CMD will be referenced for months or years — it deserves the preparation.
Efficiency that isn’t efficient
The appeal of the combined event is understandable. IR calendars are already crowded, and the prospect of condensing two major events into one is genuinely attractive.
But the apparent efficiency dissolves when the quality of communication suffers. A CMD that doesn’t land — because analysts weren’t ready, because a tough quarter cast a shadow, because the audience was distracted — doesn’t save time. It creates work. Clarifications, follow-ups, missed opportunities to build long-term shareholder confidence.
The most efficient CMD is one that achieves its purpose: communicating strategy clearly, building credibility, and giving investors the foundation they need to follow the company for the years ahead.
That’s rarely the CMD held on earnings day.