Might as well keep my trend of Apple posts going tonight...

So what is it with the stock market and their reaction to financial news? Apple comes out and announces their best quarter in the entire history of the company, and it's not even a christmas holiday quarter. How does the market respond? By dinging the stock price 6% of it's value in after hours trading. Why? Apparently because "the street" expected Apple to announce 5 million iPads sold in the quarter, but only 4.19 million were sold due to supply constraints.

I just don't understand this phenomenon. A company does well, but not to the exact level that some analyst says, and the stock price falls. But in other cases a company can do badly, but not as bad as someone predicts, and a stock price will go up.

I'm just glad I never got heavy into stock trading. I'd be basing most of my buys off what companies I think will do well, not which ones meet peoples predictions. Though, I suppose most of this would only be important in day trading. Longer term investments seem to do okay following the companies that perform well.