"How can EDS report a 60% drop in profit and still beat analyst. The whole market is set up as smoke and mirrors."
I'm short the market right now but I can't say this is a surprise. Remember when EDS was at $40 when they preannounced? Any good CEO is going to set the bar so they can trip over it after the bad news (preannouncement) is out. They know it's going to be bad so just make it a little worse than it really is so you can build some positive momentum when the actual numbers are announced. This should have been expected but will also have little affect on the overall market. This is not a "big, positive, earnings surprise." It's enough to take an individual stock down from $40 to $13.75 back up to $15. If it were market moving like the MSFT, IBM, or INTC news you would see the futures reacting very positively and they're not.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
