Premium: Quarterlies “miss” delivers buying opportunity into BizNews portfolio’s two top stocks

Investors need to constantly remind themselves the share market is a voting machine that measured popularity – not a measure of value. Mr Market either over- or under-shoots and did so again after quarterly results last night from Amazon and Apple. The companies disappointed on the most superficial measure triggering a 5% price fall in post-close trading.

Amazon, a company that focuses on the long-term, emphasises the point. Wall Street analysts expected $111.55bn in third quarter revenues. Amazon reported $110.8bn – a "miss" of 0.7% on this externally set target. Annual growth was 15%, the slowest in six years. Rational observers would point to the base effect of a lockdown-fuelled surge a year earlier. Not Mr Market.

The reaction to Apple's numbers is equally baffling. The Street set a revenue target of $84.25bn. Apple delivered $83.4bn, again less than 1% below analysts' forecast. On the upside, Apple's net income for the quarter, at $20.5bn, was $300m above Wall Street's expectations. Unlike growth-driven Amazon, for dividend-paying, share buy-backing Apple, earnings really do matter. Not this time it seems.

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