Thank God that’s over. The August reporting season is always exhausting for executives and investors, but there has been an extra layer of tension rippling through the 2019 edition.

Low growth, low rates and low confidence put pressure on all the players.

Many fund managers are coming off a tough year, and the pressure they are feeling from their own clients around performance and fees has been quickly passed down the line to management teams, who must deliver on guidance and promise more growth in 2020.

And while these same executives are boxed in by a sluggish domestic economy that is making revenue growth hard to find and what must seem like eternal upwards pressure on costs, there is simply little room for mistakes.

Guidance misses or weaker-than-expected outlook statements have been punished with wild swings.

“We are in an environment that is quite unforgiving,” says Dion Hershan, the managing director and head of Australian equities at Yarra Capital Management. “There is this unhealthy infatuation with hitting short-term consensus numbers.”

Read more…. (subscription to The Australian Financial Review required)