Hospital PA System: "Lithium is no longer available on credit" or Thomson Reuters reports 2011 year-end earnings this morning

Having no functional short-term memory, this truly is an FYI-to-me post (well, some readers might also be interested, too). Thomson Reuters' full-year and Q4 2011 earnings announcement, conference call and webcast will commence at 8:30 AM this morning. Jump-to live webcast link here. Usually, I get around to downloading the ppt stack and financial reports but rarely listen to the live webcast because, (1) well, it is at 8:30 AM (Eastern) and I don't want to start my day with a dose of TRI and (2) past financial events have left me with one question -- how can I get the same delusional-inducing meds the presenting TRI execs appear to be on when the talk about how "great" the future looks to them?

Today's event may be different. It will be Jim Smith's first go-around as TRI's CEO. (And perhaps the Company has replaced its staff economist, assuming it had one, with one whose forecasts are a tad more realistic. Guess we will just have to wait and see. Do note, TRI does not provide a transcript of their financial events but they are available. Just a heads-up, in case your functional short-term memory is as bad as mine, as in "did that TRI exec really say that."

After TRI, here's the financial reporting schedule for those major legal service vendors that are publicly held companies:

• Feb. 16, 2012: Reed Elsevier
• Feb. 22, 2012: Wolters Kluwer

Alas Bloomberg is not a publicly traded company. That frustrates the hell out of the investment house community because they have no data to crunch. Except for those on delusional meds, it is a bit of a concern, albeit longer rather than shorter term, because no one really knows how deep Bloomberg's pockets are.

One the delusional meds front, remember when TRI said something to the effect that BLaw's strategy was murky. That's not the word TRI used but that was the gist. TRI was implying that Bloomberg had no clear strategy as far as TRI could see. That's right, Bloomberg just decided to get into the online legal vendor services business for the hell of it. It had absolutely nothing to do with competitive intelligence assessments about TRI's Market division's mid-term prospects back then as proven to be true over the last two years that provided BLaw the opportunity to high-end legal power users in the law-and-business market.

"It's not my goddamn planet. Understand, monkeyboy?" I selected the work "murky" for its "dark and gloomy, esp. due to thick mist" definition. BLaw is still not a competitor in the generalist legal resources and services, TR Legal plays in. But ... well, perhaps some investment house will churn up the stock market by suggesting TRI dump Markets.

Unknown: There is a term sometimes used at the Banzai Institute: The Three Bs, meaning the Bus, the Bath, and the Bed. That is where the greatest discoveries are made in science. When one is at his most relaxed, her most receptive... that is when a foreign consciousness, a "stray bullet" as B. Banzai calls it, may pop into one's head.

[JH]