It is time again to worry about earnings and warnings. This is the beginning of the earnings reporting season for fourth quarter 2010 periods. The beauty of this time of year and the problem is that 2010 doesn’t matter anymore. We are in 2011 already and that means that the forecasts of management for the future take on extra meaning. That is problematic as most managements have a distinct bias toward under-promising so they can later over-deliver on their guesses. This conservatism can be mistaken for a downbeat outlook. Just remember Cisco’s outlook in October that crushed that stock, just because they weren’t forecasting a stronger future than either their suppliers or competitors, good but not good enough. That could be one factor that keeps visiting negative surprises on this market. Read more