Wall Street is so full of $hit. All these earnings come in and almost every company beats consensus estimates, usually by a couple pennies or about 5%. The game is so rigged and predictable that if the company happens to meet consensus but not beat it, it gets punished. But that's rarely the case of course, because they purposely give analysts the numbers that they can beat when earnings are announced. Why do they call it consensus estimates when everyone knows the number will be beat by a few pennies providing for the "upside" surprise.
People buy and sell off of the smallest news or rumor...it's so dumb. I mean look at Bank of America today... everyone and their mom knew about the subprime issues for months and it tanks from 53 to 47.80 because of the earnings drop.