Listing late reporters
The reasoning is that this gives all shareholders the chance to analyse the result over the weekend before trading commences on Monday.
This way, professional investors who sit in front of their information-filled screens all day don't get the jump on small investors who may be out earning an honest living.
We don't doubt Buffett's motives and he has telegraphed this policy to the market so everyone is aware of it.
Dodging scrutiny
However, as any PR consultant worth their salt will tell you, reporting after the market has closed on Friday can be a good way to dodge media scrutiny.
If you report late enough, you should be able to avoid a mention in the Saturday papers. And the financial press on Sunday and Monday is probably the least read of the week.
While some of the companies we're about to mention may have honourable, Buffett-like intentions, we suspect others may not. Rarely are fantastic results posted at this time – usually the good ones can't wait for the media to pick their stories up.
While most brokers were out sipping their martinis in bars whose names we struggle to pronounce, we were keeping an eye on the late reporters for Friday 15 March.
Many of these companies will use the excuse that they are Perth-based and are therefore a few hours behind the times. It's up to you whether you believe them or not.
Melbourne-based Austrim caught our eye. The struggling manufacturer posted its ugly half-year result just after 8:30pm. Historically, it's reported around lunch time but decided against that this time around.
E-com Multi has the dubious honour of filing the latest report we saw at 8:40pm (although they are Perth-based). We were pretty tired at this stage but did manage a peep at the headline $4m loss.
Autron is Melbourne-based with a market capitalisation of more than $100m. It's no small fish. It reported a $2.6m loss (marred by write-offs and tax charges) at 8:21pm.
Last but not least, ex-dot.com darling BMC Media (Sydney-based) managed to post its $12.5m loss at 8:18pm. There are dozens more we could mention but we've run out of space.
We'd like to see the ASX insist on lodgement by 5pm AEST but doubt it will happen.