Your friend is right, but Wall Street won't listen to him because it means fewer quantifiable metrics for Wall Street to latch onto to evaluate (or pretend to evaluate) how well the company is doing. The analysts would then have to evaluate based upon actually understanding the company in depth, meaning they have to invest more hours into analysis and cover fewer companies, and reduce their own effectiveness/profitability. Not understanding the business at a deep level in this situation is a feature for Wall Street, not a bug. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"