Don't disagree with anything you've said
there's no real "rule" regarding these metrics and numbers. Thats why we have analysts whose job is to read and comprehend and analyse these things to take them into overall context of the market.
And overall, right now, a single quarter a trend doesn't make. Just us armchair analysts looking at the numbers, trends, histories and history of other companies who have been in similar scenarios to try and predict where the trends may be directed.
Every CEO needs to be able to balance all of the above. the biggest myth that the 21st century has perpetuated in our culture is that the CEO's job is to do nothing but maximize profit no matter what. I contend that doing so is a losing game for long term growth and stability as constant pumping up of margins can only go so far on the pricing side (as supply demand elasticity and market dictates the range of prices acceptable). So when you run out of pricing as a lever, you're forced to reduce costs to maintain the "maximization of profits above all else". Historically throughout the free market, there's a history of companies who have traded short term profit at the expense of market share for massive short term returns. Typically, the end result is that the companies cutting of costs ends up burning through good will of the user base and the market share declines are a potential indicator of that. Especially in a market that is not growing.
So I contend that a CEO's job is NOT to maximize profit. That's the CFO's job to recommend the course of actions required to maximize profit. It's the CEO's job to weight that recommendation and steer the company appropriately taking into consideration not only the CFO's maximization recommendations, but every other C level executives directives on how to maintain long term business strategy.
