Forecasts

If you follow financial news, you will often come across the terms "profits exceeded the forecast" or "profits were below analysts' forecast", especially while discussing quarterly/annual results. The stock price fluctuates accordingly. I keep thinking to myself "why can't the analysts get it right?". Most news articles, however, are written to implicitly imply that it was the company's fault to not match the forecast. In my opinion, it should probably the other way round: we should criticize the so-called experts/analysts for their incorrect forecasts.

Some related thoughts on this:
* The analyst (or his firm) could possibly profit in the stock market by deliberately supplying misleading forecasts. My guess is that there are some regulations (from agencies such as the SEC) to prevent this.
* Is there a stock-price type indicator for the analysts performance: higher price for more accurate forecasts.