When you hear that a company has "missed estimates" or "beaten estimates", these are references to consensus estimates. Based on projections, models, sentiments and research, analysts strive to come up with an estimate of what the company will do in the future.
Obviously, consensus estimates are not an exact science. This leads some market pundits to believe that the market is not as efficient as often purported, and that the efficiency is driven by estimates about a multitude of future events that may not be accurate. This might help to explain why a company's stock quickly adjusts to the new information provided by quarterly earnings and revenue numbers when these figures diverge from the consensus estimate.
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