"We are always more conservative in our planning on profit projections," he said.

Demand is solid, he says, but profit projections are hard.

He said the company's refusal to offer its own profit projections further rattled the market.

That is not to say pharmaceutical companies ignore profit projections.

He declined to make a profit projection for the fourth quarter.

Depending on how the numbers are recorded, future profit projections can look better than they might have otherwise.

But he questioned whether the profit projections might be too high.

To achieve its profit projections, United said it needed to streamline operations further during 2006 and 2007.

When a company does not meet sales estimates, it frequently falls short of profit projections, as well.

They never wanted to tell you all of it, but it was the little things which might turn a profit projection on its head.