eli5: Why is it not good enough for a company to turn a profit, why do they have to hit “expectations”

Question

Headline after headline say that companies “failed” and/or didn’t hit “targets”, but when you look at the numbers, the company made profits, sometimes in the millions to billions, it just wasn’t “enough”.

Is this greed? Why is it not good enough to make a profit?

In: Economics

Answer 1

I can spend 100$ investing in a specific company. A year later, I can sell that stock for 101$ because they grew 1%, netting 1$.

Alternatively, I could have invested that 100$ in treasury bonds and got a 5% return.

From a certain perspective, yes, it is greed, but that’s also the reason people invest in companies in the first place.