Most of you are probably familiar with Cognos, one of the few remaining major, stand-alone providers of business intelligence software. But, I’d guess that a lot of you were puzzled by what happened to the Canadian’s company’s stock today. Cognos announced decent second-quarter results Thursday -- indeed it outperformed Wall Street’s expectations -- and raised its outlook for the rest of the fiscal year. So why Most of you are probably familiar with Cognos, one of the few remaining major, stand-alone providers of business intelligence software. But, I’d guess that a lot of you were puzzled by what happened to the Canadian’s company’s stock today.Cognos announced decent second-quarter results Thursday — indeed it outperformed Wall Street’s expectations — and raised its outlook for the rest of the fiscal year. So why did the stock plunge nearly 5% in after-hours trading? Wall Street wanted more. Cognos said it expects third-quarter revenue in the range of $270 million to $285 million and earnings of between 45 cents and 53 cents a share. But analysts were looking for earnings of 52 or 53 cents a share depending on whose estimates you use. Sure, if Cognos hits the top of its projections, it’ll beat Wall Street by a penny a share. But investors did some very simple math: the mid-point of Cognos’ range is just 49 cents a share. Oops. Hit the sell button. The lesson here is that Wall Street looks forward, not backward. Investors give more weight to what may happen tomorrow than to what happened yesterday. Just because your favorite company did well last quarter, that doesn’t mean it will do well in the next. And that’s what Wall Street really cares about. Obsessive concentration on the next quarter may seem short-sighed, and sometimes it is, but that’s the way Wall Street works. Privately help companies don’t have that pressure, but neither do they have access to the cash that comes with being traded. A related worry has to do with the continued slide of the dollar. In the case of Cognos, that means the company is now contending with a loonie (gotta love that nickname for the Canadian dollar) that has suddenly reached parity, more or less, with the U.S. dollar. The loonie has appreciated by about 16% this year, and since more than half of its revenue derives from sales in the U.S., profit margins could suffer. Remember, software sold in the States is priced in dollars. Cognos could make up the difference by raising prices, but that would be stupid and won’t happen. Hmm. Might be a good time to buy software from Cognos if you were thinking of doing so. Meanwhile, shares of both Cognos and rival Business Objects continue to bounce up and down with rumors of potential buyouts. As so often is the case these days, Oracle is on the usual suspects list, as is IBM. One of my Wall Street sources said there were rumors on The Street that Larry Ellison was willing to pay $53 a share for Business Objects, and that caused the stock to spike. But when investors heard that the company is thinking $60 a share, the chart headed south. Unless you’re very well connected, or have cash to burn, trading on acquisition rumors is, well, dumb. Meanwhile, take pity on your CFO at the end of the quarter; he or she is probably sweating. Technology Industry