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Ben Franklin famously said only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. That maxim may be true but in these finicky financial times, another element might fit too:  guidance below expectations sinks stocks.  It doesn’t matter if a company routinely underestimates future performance and then exceeds those expectations.  Conservatism isn’t rewarded.  It doesn’t matter if a company sets new performance records.  The past isn’t rewarded.  What matters, all that seems to matter (at least when it comes to short-term stock performance), is meeting or beating the analyst gold standard and projecting a better than expected future. As Apple proved yet again today, it’s a simple truth: Guide Lower than Analysts and the Stock Price Will Pay.

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Intel kicked off the technology earnings season with positive surprises earlier this week but Thursday, the keg seemed to run dry early at the party and things turned grim.  Google and Microsoft both released earnings and neither company satisfied the appetites of a nervous market.   The initial reaction was to buckle the seat belt and grab on, the ride looked like it was about to get rough; and in fact it did.  Google’s news led to a more than 10% sell off in after-hours trading.  The bright side: Google’s news wasn’t really bad.  The selloff, or at least the rationale for it, appears to have been premature.

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Wednesday, after the market’s close, Blackberry maker Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) released earnings that narrowly missed guidance for both revenues and earnings per share (EPS).  Having never come up short before, and consistently out performed, Wall Street expected more from RIM.  The stock traded down heavily after hours.  Thursday, the market showed no mercy.   Sometimes though, bad news is actually good news.  Perspective is everything.

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In a year where gaming companies seem to be shattering records at every turn, another stellar result no longer comes as a surprise but is instead, an expectation.  French game publisher Ubisoft didn’t disappoint Thursday.  Even after upping expectations several times in the past year (most recently in March) the company reported fiscal yearend earnings that raised the bar even higher.

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Acquisitions and corporate reorganizations can be expensive and time consuming.   Electronic Arts, which has worked through both in the past year, demonstrated just how much Tuesday with the release of Q4 and yearend earnings.

Partly due to onetime charges, the game publisher recorded a quarterly loss of $94m.  The good news, on an adjusted basis, they earned $30m (9 cents a share), up from $19m last year.  The results were also more than good enough to surpass analyst consensus expectations.

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The video gaming industry and the movie industry share a lot of common ground – narrative techniques, visual style, entertainment – but no factor is more influential to either industry than the importance of good titles.  It’s a little like the line from the movie “Field of Dreams” :  “If you build it they will come.”  If you have good quality games, you draw audiences and build money making franchises.  But if you make a dud? Revenues are sure to slump.

Game makers Midway and THQ haven’t been able to find the working formula and missed with earning as a result.  Activision seems to have it locked in.

Thanks again to a surging game industry and phenomenal sales from the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty game franchises, Activision turned in stellar financial results Thursday.

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The Superhero business is booming.  Marvel Entertainments first self produced movie, Iron Man, dominated the weekend box office earning an estimated $201m in global receipts in its debut.  At the same time, on Wall Street, the company didn’t fare badly either.  Marvel posted better a better than expected quarter and raised 2008 guidance. These numbers are only a small part of a bigger story.

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