Many years ago the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) referred to financial analysts as “teenage scribblers”. And they don’t seem to have grown up. Yesterday Samsung announced that it expected profits for the second quarter of the year to be yet another record at between $8.2 and $8.5bn. That’s right – eight point five billion dollars. $1.20 for every man, woman, and child on the face of the planet in just one quarter. The company’s shares promptly fell by 2.8%. That’s right as well – record profits and the company’s shares fell. Why? Because analysts had previously decided that the company was going to report higher profits. How much higher? About 3%.

The Financial Times commented that there were “fears that the world’s biggest smartphone maker could struggle to meet optimistic market expectations.” Not that they weren’t going to continue to make shed loads of profit. Not that they weren’t going to continue to innovate. Not that, despite the hyper-profits of Galaxy phones and tablets there are vast underlying markets across the board. The company is being punished for not meeting the teenage scribblers’ finger in the air estimates of what they were going to do.

It is a mad world my masters!