> The simplest counter-example is the existence of dividends.
No. All professional valuation models account for dividends and buybacks. Both can and do effect share price.
> financial engineering tricks that a company could do to make their share price shoot to the moon just before cratering to zero
Yes, I would have assumed it obvious that a company wouldn't seek to maximize their share price over an infinitesimal time frame.
I am not advocating for the correctness or perfectness of the current incentive structure. Rather, I am pointing out that any company which is not seeking to improve their share price will very quickly be targeted by short sellers and activists. And thus, management will change priorities to align with increasing shareholder returns or they will be replaced.
>> The simplest counter-example is the existence of dividends.
> No. All professional valuation models account for dividends and buybacks. Both can and do effect share price.
This is another way of saying that professional valuation models account for the fact that it is NOT true that the "incentive structure of public companies is only to maximize share price".
> Yes, I would have assumed it obvious that a company wouldn't seek to maximize their share price over an infinitesimal time frame.
Okay. But that's my whole point! Over WHAT time frame is the corporation optimizing total returns, and how are those returns DISTRIBUTED to share holders, and even then, WHICH shareholders hold the decision-making power?
Share price isn't the whole story, and isn't even the whole story if you consider variable time frames.
No. All professional valuation models account for dividends and buybacks. Both can and do effect share price.
> financial engineering tricks that a company could do to make their share price shoot to the moon just before cratering to zero
Yes, I would have assumed it obvious that a company wouldn't seek to maximize their share price over an infinitesimal time frame.
I am not advocating for the correctness or perfectness of the current incentive structure. Rather, I am pointing out that any company which is not seeking to improve their share price will very quickly be targeted by short sellers and activists. And thus, management will change priorities to align with increasing shareholder returns or they will be replaced.