It used to be that if companies' trounced expected earning, investors would cheer. That still holds true in some cases, but in the financial services industry, beating the estimates means less these days. There may be, fairly or not, a sense that top companies know how to play the earnings game, astutely talking analysts down or up and engineering the right numbers. There's also a sense that predicting the earnings of top Wall Street banks has become more difficult, given the importance of proprietary trading and deals. Goldman Sachs' earnings were a good example. Mr. Market shrugged when the much better than expected estimates were released, preferring to focus on the near-term, which doesn't look so great. Rumors of a horrible November did not help.   

For more on Goldman Sachs' earnings:
- here's an AP article

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