Understanding the market

I’ve been taking keen interest in understanding how the stock market works since the last 4-5 months. Yes I watch Mad Money sometimes and yes I read “Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World”. Its all very interesting and the market is supposed to behave in a somewhat predictable fashion (it usually doesn’t!) etc.

What cracks me up (maybe its just me) sometimes is statements like these (Google has their third quarter earnings report tomorrow):

ANALYST TAKE: “We believe Google will report (third-quarter) results better than our expectations,” JPMorgan said in a client note last week. (From here)

I mean if you “believe” something then why should it be different from what you “expect”. If only someone could make me understand the difference?