growth forecasts made in early 2000 for a wide variety of high-tech and telecom companies were egregiously wrong. U.S. government budgetary, contract, legal, and regulatory decisions can have enormous implications for the fortunes of individual companies. So can the incapacitation of key members of management, the discovery of a major new product, a major oil spill, terrorist attacks, the entry of new competitors, price wars, and natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes, among others.
