Ebay Plunges

Usually a 44 percent rise in profit is good for a stock:

SHARES in Ebay plunged more than 18 per cent yesterday, a day after its quarterly profits failed to meet market expectations.

Despite seeing net profits rise 44 per cent to $205.4 million (£110m) between October and December, Wall Street had expected more.

Shares in the online auctioneer dropped to $84, to be among the Nasdaq’s worst performers. Its net revenues rose to $935.8m from $648.4m.

Ebay's problem isn't its business, which is humming along. It's that no one could live up to the performance that's already priced into their shares.

It's also interesting that the terse phrase "Wall Street had expected more" is used, rather than a consensus forecast. Is "more" is such a ridiculous number it's not worth printing?