Business and Personal Finance Dictionary

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• EARNINGS SURPRISE
  
  If a company's earnings are higher, or lower, than Wall Street financial analysts are expecting, it's a surprise. There's typically an impact, sometimes a dramatic one, on the price of the company's stock. That is, higher-than-expected earnings tend to send the stock price higher, and lower-than-expected profits tend to drive the price down. And the analysts, having been surprised once, generally anticipate similar surprises in the upcoming quarters.
  
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