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A coalition of U.S. chief executives, business groups and labor unions wants corporate America to stop providing quarterly earnings guidance to Wall Street in an attempt to limit the influence of hedge funds and other short-term investors on stock prices.

The coalition under the auspices of The Center for Audit Quality, a Washington-based non-profit, nonpartisan group affiliated with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, issued a series of recommendations Monday that it hopes will increase pressure on companies and fund managers to focus on long-term objectives rather than short-term fixes.

The group also issued a series of recommendations on executive compensation amid the public outcry over outsize pay packages for chief executives.

Known as the Aspen Principles, the guidelines focus on long-term results rather than short-term estimates.

Besides no longer providing quarterly earnings guidance to analysts and not responding to analyst estimates, other key provisions include: corporate boards communicating with "long-term oriented investors" on senior executive compensation; requiring senior executives to hold stock they are given for at least some period beyond their tenure with the company, thus tying the executives to the long-term growth of the company; and banning senior executives from hedging the risk of long-term oriented stock option compensation.

The principles also call for "clawbacks" that allow firms to recover performance-based executive awards when results are reduced or erased later by financial restatements.

Hedge funds and other short-term investors tend to use the guidance to exploit the discrepancies between actual and forecast earnings offering some rewarding trading opportunities.

Corporate leaders and academics argue that the pressure to meet quarterly forecasts prompts companies to forgo long-term investments such as capital expenditure and research and development.

The principles say companies should look at a five-year horizon.

The Council of Institutional Investors and the Business Roundtable, which represents 160 leading U.S. chief executives, developed the guidelines or principles. Besides those groups, labor and pension groups such as the AFL-CIO, the New York State Common Retirement Fund and TIAA-Cref are supporting the guidelines. Corporate giants such as Apache Corp., PepsiCo Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Xerox Corp. also have signed on.

Some prominent individuals, including Ira M. Millstein of law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, and the senior associate dean, corporate governance, Yale School of Management and former SEC Chairman William Donaldson, who now heads Donaldson Enterprises Inc., have also endorsed the principles.

"The center is proud to join the ranks of these influential organizations in supporting these important principles," Center for Audit Quality executive director Cynthia Fornelli said in a statement on Monday.

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