Great Expectations

Flash memory maker SanDisk reported last night and ran head-on into the kind of expectations dilemma that I have been writing about.

The company beat estimates, both top and bottom line, and raised guidance going forward. The stock is going to get hit today as expectations, probably for future earnings guidance, were higher than where the company guided to.

With the semiconductor cycle having turned, everybody it seemed either owned this name or was recommending it, including Cramer. It wasn't a bad quarter. It was a bad situation for the stock in the short term.

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I don't know what the solution is but I have a huge problem with the terrible ads on CNBC in the early morning hours. The worst are CoCoPari, which looks like it was directed by a 16 year old boy, Vikingpest.com, and finallyfast.com. Arrrgh.

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"Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say "Amazon acquires Zappos" or "Zappos sells to Amazon". While those headlines are technically correct, they don't really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”)"

The above is one strange paragraph from a strange email written by the Zappos CEO yesterday to employees. Amazon acquired Zappos yesterday and this CEO elected to pretend that synergies and accretion are not paramount for Amazon. We'll see.