Lower Guidance

[RexKatWA]

I was just reading a financial report in which it stated that the company was issuing "lower guidance". I looked in several financial glossaries online, and couldn't find a definition of this phrase, and when I search for the phrase, I just get a lot more articles that freely use it with the assumption that it's self-explanatory or something.

Can someone tell me what this signifies?

[cynic]

Corporate earnings "guidance" refers to a company's management's opinion of their future earnings. About 80% of public companies report these figures.

"Lower guidance" means that management is revising their forecasted earnings DOWNWARD. This may or may not affect analysts' earnings forecasts.