one has to ask – what morons are doing research on companies, how do those highly educated analysts deserve their money?

i´m pretty sure analysts aren´t that dumb at all. they underestimate with a purpose, perhaps they were told to do so.

wall street was staring at the abyss.
and they know that the whole system (=their job) can only survive when you can manufacture a sustained rally.
major part of that game is to play with market expectations = keep estimates as low as possible.

i´m curious how long it will take until the market has finally figured that out.

look at the charts of all those hyped “blowout” earnings (AA, INTC, JPM …) and what happened to the days following the earnings release.

there is a pattern of “sell the spike” emerging.
i attribute that to

a)selling on news, since (smart) major participants weren´t surprised at all by those earnings beats.

b)HFT programs provide huge liquidity at the day of the surprise (remember: they make money by doing as much trades as possible). but the day after they withdraw in part from the stock and head over to the next hot earnings play.
speculative market participants who bought into the spike are suddenly confronted with much lower volume and have to sell to lower bids.