Six essays in which IR Advantage argues against its own published work — building the strongest case we can against each position, then ruling on it. Some we refine. Some we hold. We show the reasoning either way.
Most firms publish their views and defend them. We decided to do the opposite. The Rebuttal Papers take six positions IR Advantage has argued in print and put each one on the stand — building the strongest case we can against our own work before deciding whether it survives.
Each essay follows the same discipline. We state the position we took, in our own words. We steelman the counter-case: the version a smart, hostile reader would press, with the sources behind it. Then we rule. Refine where the original was right in direction but too clean in execution. Hold where the challenge lands and the position still stands. No straw men, and no pretending we were right all along.
The verdict is coded on every cover and every card below — gold for a refinement, blue for a hold. Read as a set, they make a larger point: a view worth publishing should be able to survive its own author arguing against it.
We called the quantitative threshold a crutch. The analysts who price your stock run it every night. The number is not the enemy of judgment — it is the floor judgment stands on.
We argued IR is not marketing. Then index funds became the marginal buyer — names that purchase the stock without anyone persuading anyone. Does the distinction hold when the buyer never takes the meeting?
Our memo told the founder what transparency would buy him: cheaper capital, a re-rating, a fairer multiple. He answered with something closer to the truth — and made me think the essay got the price right and the diagnosis wrong.
A company drops quarterly guidance for all the reasons the thoughtful literature recommends — and the stock falls five percent. Withdrawing guidance is not free, and our essay underpriced what the market hears when you stop talking.
The concentrated, hand-picked register is the one the quality-shareholder literature tells you to want. It is also, on the days the stock moves, almost untradeable. Sometimes the crowded register is the better one.
We told Asian issuers to volunteer their bad news. The strongest objection is a courtroom: the candid disclosure, made in good faith, that a plaintiff’s firm later builds a complaint around. The position holds — but only once you have answered that.
We welcome conversations with IR professionals, board directors, and capital markets participants.
Start a Conversation