Don't understand Stock Markets

[55palfers]

I have a number of shares in a US firm, Air Products and Chemicals.

https://www.airproducts.com/

They recently issued an improved Q2 profit forecast.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/air-produc...

The shares fell by almost 6%

https://shareholder.broadridge.com/airproducts/

I'm mystified that encouraging news causes shares to fall. Investors were expecting more?

Can anyone enlighten me please?

[limpsfield]

There are expectations around earnings. If the company falls short or exceeds the earnings then there can be a sharp reaction by the share price. I don’t know in this case, perhaps have a quick Google, but maybe market expectations were higher than the results/forecast.

Happens all the time. Markets can often seem illogical around individual company results.

[limpsfield]

I googled and here is one take on it. They are spending more than expected.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3968289-air-products...

[Terminator X]

It's almost as if the stock market is impossible to predict it does always seem to march steadily upwards though if you hang on to shares for long enough.

TX.

[55palfers]

Thanks for the quick replies chaps.

I've had the shares for years. Bought them on SAYE when I worked for them

TBH they have done really well and pay a decent quarterly dividend.

I'll sit tight.

[Ecosseven]

Happens all the time. I have worked for my current employer for almost 12 years and participate in the sharesave scheme each year. We issued good results in March this year. Profits and earnings per share were up but the share price dropped by around 3% on the day of the announcements. I guess the market was expecting more..........

[vxsmithers]

I was listening to the earnings call and was surprised as well, pre opening they were up 3%.

Spooked by the exit in far east and significant increase in capex for H2 new tech i'm guessing

Personally I think the share price will rebound, lots of positives and a very untapped market for Green H2 could be the golden goose, but I'm no expert and I'm usually wrong!

[uknick]

55palfers said:

I have a number of shares in a US firm, Air Products and Chemicals.

https://www.airproducts.com/

They recently issued an improved Q2 profit forecast.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/air-produc...

The shares fell by almost 6%

https://shareholder.broadridge.com/airproducts/

I'm mystified that encouraging news causes shares to fall. Investors were expecting more?

Can anyone enlighten me please?

The market must have heard I've bought some LOL. I do seem to buy at market high and sell at market low

Same sort of thing happened the other week when BP made record profits of about £4bn for the 1st quarter; the share price fell by nearly 10%.

[Mankers]

55palfers said:

I have a number of shares in a US firm, Air Products and Chemicals.

https://www.airproducts.com/

They recently issued an improved Q2 profit forecast.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/air-produc...

The shares fell by almost 6%

https://shareholder.broadridge.com/airproducts/

I'm mystified that encouraging news causes shares to fall. Investors were expecting more?

Can anyone enlighten me please?

Take a look at Linde, if you are interested in industrial
Gas, Praxair and Linde merged a few years ago. They were the best players in this sector.

[leef44]

I don't know in this instance but with the U.S. ceiling debt issue, there is a lot of profit taking across the board on the U.S. stock market.

Probably when this is resolved and this uncertainty is taken away (temporarily) then stock markets will be happy again.

[LeoSayer]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

Sometimes the only thing you can say for certain is that there were more (aggressive) sellers than buyers on the day.

This.

The price reflects supply and demand for the stock, nothing else. The share price doesn't move down automatically when poor results are announced. It moves down when there are more shares with sale orders than buy orders in a period.

The motivations for the buyers and sellers may be related to the performance of the company but may also be completely unrelated.

For example, when interest rates rise, the rationale for holding a company based on it's expected future return against risk-free government bonds may mean it's no longer worth holding any more.

[DoubleSix]

“Buy the rumour, sell the fact.”