If Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon had their way, publicly-traded companies would immediately forego offering quarterly earnings guidance and instead focus investors on long-term growth prospects.

The duo isn’t calling for an end to quarterly reporting, mind you, although that is one of the misreads being batted around of the op-ed the pair of market veterans penned for the Wall Street Journal. The beef is with the time and money spent on developing guidance and the damaging short-term such a practice can encourage.

Their point is well taken too.

Yet, the thesis behind the suggestion is flawed in a couple of ways. Namely, it ignores the fact that analysts, who are going to offer quarterly earnings estimates anyway, often rely on company guidance as a starting point.

And, a close-second, Dimon’s and Buffett’s stance assumes, at least somewhat errantly, that companies are incapable of convincing investors that short-term pain can often lead to long-term gain.

Glossing Over a Key Reality

Admittedly, it’s difficult to argue with Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon. The former turned Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B) into a behemoth, starting with nothing but just a little seed money, while the latter has been the chief of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) for over a decade. The two titans have been around the block, more than once.

The time at the top, though, may have let them become a little bit disconnected with what’s happening at the front lines of the market where traders and investors have to process information, and fight with other traders and investors.

In their defense [and far be it for me to speak for them], the opinion piece may have been more to make a point than to change policy; we can tolerate some details being glossed over, while others are embellished.

Even allowing for colorizing and flavor though, a couple of key components of their case don’t quite hold up.

Case in point:

“…the financial markets have become too focused on the short term. Quarterly earnings-per-share guidance is a major driver of this trend and contributes to a shift away from long-term investments. Companies frequently hold back on technology spending, hiring, and research and development to meet quarterly earnings forecasts that may be affected by factors outside the company’s control, such as commodity-price fluctuations, stock-market volatility and even the weather.”

Dimon and Buffett may well be right, but not in all cases. Plus, there’s no empirical evidence, not even an example.

There are clues to suggest the contrary though. One only has to look at last quarter’s numbers from Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL, NASDAQ:GOOG) breadwinner division Google. Though the company topped earnings estimates, Morgan Stanley may have been responsible for reeling expectations in before the company’s numbers were posted.

And, despite the fact that Alphabet was on the fence in terms of earnings, that didn’t prevent its Google arm from reporting capital expenditures that were more than twice the figure analysts were calling for, and tripling on a year-over-year basis.

Those spending decisions were made well before Alphabet knew how much it would be able to report as a Q1 profit.

The op-ed also opined:

“The pressure to meet short-term earnings estimates has contributed to the decline in the number of public companies in America over the past two decades. Short-term-oriented capital markets have discouraged companies with a longer term view from going public at all, depriving the economy of innovation and opportunity. Fewer public companies has also meant fewer opportunities for retail investors to create wealth through their 401ks and individual retirement accounts.”

Again, maybe, but there’s enough of a lack of empirical evidence, or even anecdotal evidence, that the argument fails to hold water. It could be just as likely that private equity is providing funding for these would-be companies before that have a need or chance to go public (as seems to be the case).

It could be that, as was the case with the Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) acquisition of iZettle, publicly-traded companies are snatching up pre-IPO companies before they become publicly-traded.

It could also be the case that there just aren’t as many marketable ideas to sell to investors anymore. One only has to look at the disasters names like Blue Apron Holdings Inc (NYSE:APRN) and GoPro Inc (NASDAQ:GPRO) have become to recognize that being publicly-traded and being successful don’t have to be the same thing.

Or, it could be a combination of all thee.

Bottom Line on the Buffett, Dimon Clarion Call

But I digress. The point was and still is, while Buffett and Dimon are likely to be right in saying too many investors have become too short-term minded, they’re missing a key pint. That is, even if companies stop issuing guidance, the market is still going to judge quarterly results based on analyst estimates.

At least by dishing out guidance, a company can indirectly manage the market’s response. Otherwise, investors and analysts are ONLY guessing, which could serve to make things more volatile, not less.

The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

Either way, if Buffett and Dimon really wanted to dial the market’s overwhelming short-term anxieties back and let long-term mindsets prevail, they would have been better off penning the letter to investors, telling them to not sweat the small stuff… not that they would have listened either.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter, at @jbrumley.