According to a former employee who has filed a wrongful termination suit against Mattel, top management took extraordinary measures to make earnings predictions that year.

From 2000 to 2004, the company consistently met or exceeded its own quarterly and annual earnings predictions, propelling the share price higher and higher.

Even in the face of international turmoil and the possibility of a recession, many said they were not ready to alter earnings predictions for their companies.

Today, analysts pounded the company and immediately reduced what they had already thought were pessimistic earnings predictions.

The earnings prediction for the current year includes the result of $230 million in gains from selling assets, such as the company's consumer finance subsidiary.

This means that "investment advisory services, earnings predictions and complicated chart patterns are useless," he says.

Investors were recently shaken by discouraging earnings predictions in the computer sector.

McDonnell Douglas dropped for a more edifying reason: a bad earnings prediction from the company.

The company said also that it could not provide earnings predictions for 1993 because of the current uncertainties.

The rewards for accurate earnings predictions, however, will also be higher.