While I'd like to believe that I know at least the general principles of stock market investing, two events have happened in the last couple weeks that leave me stymied.

First, when I decided to leave Amerigroup, I sold off all of my stock.  I did so for many reasons, not the least of which was capital for the disruption of cash flow due to the job switch.  Also, I had planned to sell last year at 45 but eventually only got 32.  Then a couple weeks ago, AGP gets hit with a $144M verdict for fraud in IL, which, of course, I never heard anything about.  The stock price dropped ~$7 to $28.  But within 3 trading days, the price is back up to $32, which it had been hovering around for months.  Every analyst I've read says that AGP was foolish to allow the case to go to court, speculates that the top end damages could reach $500M+, and the devalued the price to mid $20s.  What's going on?

Second, last month, Airbus lost the contract with FedEx for 10 of their new A380 super-jumbo jets, because Airbus keeps delaying the delivery of the finalized airframe.  Several of their other customers have also expressed concern and threaten to pull their contracts.  This comes after a few CEO changes and an enormous loss statement for the last fiscal quarter.  And what happens to the stock price?  Nothing. 

So I obviously know less about the market than I though I did, which wasn't much beyond the fundamentals of buy low - sell high.  The DotCom VC games confused me too, but I was right in the end there.  The housing market is bizarro, but is correcting the way I thought too.  But these two examples are beyond my understanding.  Personally, I would have jumped ship immediately on both, but I would have been wrong.

Go Figure...