I'm not sure who the real idiots are, stock market analysts or the executives who try to appease them.

small change for Gates

Yesterday shell announced a yearly profit of £13.9bn or roughly shitloads of dollars.

Are those who 'invest' their hard-earned money with these monkeys, who pay themselves megabucks for spending their time trying to second-guess what other monkeys will do. Now, if I could just find an alternative ...

Seems like the problem with capitalism as a whole today. A company can obtain a 90% market share, be making billions in revenue, and the board doesn't give a damn about that if they aren't making huge quarter-on-quarter growth in revenue to support an ever-increasing stock price.

Seems like the eternal cycle nowadays: a company starts out little and competitive, they go IPO, customers *and* investors are happy for a while, then they mature, reach a large market share, have nowhere else to grow, loose focus on their original mission and start diversifying into everything under the sun, or sell-out their original product until it is so bloated, full of ads, and licensing restrictions that another startup takes over, and the cycle repeats.

Either investors need to wise up, or the SEC needs to start forcing mature stocks to pay a percentage of dividends equivalent to their market share.

Hmm, Analysts or executives, difficult one that. On balance it's probably the Analysts, as I'd expect the executives made their bonuses, having set their sights much lower.

A very good point just look at the fuss everytime MS look like they might not hit mega $$$ profit increases, the fact that they're still raking in billions of $$$ doesn't seem to factor in.

Paris as she knows what it's like to suddenly have billions slip from her grasp ;-)

Pray tell, Cade Metz in San Francisco, approaching world domination in what? [Seventh] Heaven forbid that one should rain/rein/reign on the parade and compromise the charade, but that report smacks of quite copious amounts of delusion grandeur. But then San Francisco does have a well earned and renowned reputation for such heads of wisdom and learning. Bravo, we salute you.

Temper IT though, with the best of home grown native IT, rooted in and through dDutch IntelAIgents and the Beta Systems Perceptions Management will Deliver All that the Present and the Promis and its Paper Note Currency are failing with.

And if you can for one moment imagine a Right Royal Dutch British Protocol Shell striking IT MegaRich in AIMetaDataMining Algorithms for Immaculate Source Code and Key Unlocks..... an Alien XXXXtrapolation on Haskell STM Santa Drivers ....... you will be on the Right SuperSubAtomic/HyperRadioProActive Processor Tracks, and you will need to realise that the Tangents made available will be Beautifully Vetted for Third Party Fitness for Giving Purpose........ Pay the Piper, hear the NEUKearer Tune for ITs Heads Up Display/Rousing Chorus/Climactic Crescendos

Virtually Real SeXXXXed Up Programming for Hearts and Minds AIResearch and dDevelopment in Venus Data BasICQs from their very Own EggHead Deadhead DiVisions.

And who would be an Eternal Fool to Battle against IT and Yourself and ITs QuITe Natural GAIAn Embrace......ITs AI MotherBoard Template.

And the Security for that comes in it being so Preposterously True and so Blatantly Shared.

AMFM repeating the old Public Enemy adage: "Don't believe the hype!" Googol != Promis 2.0?

Mine is the black trenchcoat with matching hat.

I, for one, welcome our new Googly overlords.

Hey, 1.2 Billion isn't bad for a company that doesn't actually produce anything. Well - anything that people would pay for anyway...