Artichokes: 3 for 99c

I'm not that active in the stock market, but I definitely have some Cisco stock (and I'm an employee), so I am, of course, interested in our earnings. I read the coverage (Thirty-four percent gain in earnings, 17% higher sales, etc.) as it came out on the wire when we reported after market close and I thought, "wow, great quarter." And, it was. However, others wanted a superfragilisticexpealidotioius quarter and we were down in afterhours trading and are down this morning. So, it is all about expectations and knowledge of the market.

My expectations for artichokes is that 3 for 99c is a good price. Others, who know the artichoke market better than I think that 3 for 99c isn't a bad price, but that the artichokes should be bigger or heavier...or that the good ones have already been picked and what is left are the dreg artichokes.

Cisco is a great company and I'm proud to work here. Our friends in the market like us and know that we had a very good quarter, but very good isn't, it seems, always good enough. My favorite quote from an analyst, which put things in perspective for me was from John Slack from Morningstar, as quoted by Jordan Robertson of the AP. Slack said the stock fell victim Tuesday to overeager investors who have run up the stock price and expected higher guidance. "These guys continue to execute, execute, execute," Slack said. "But this is a case where Wall Street's expectations had been running up in the past few weeks. It's a typical sell on the news thing. I don't expect much downside from here."

I'm not a Wall Street analyst and I won't pretend to understand the machinactions of stock price or the market, but what I do know is that the corn on the cob that I got last night was tasty...and that's good news to me.