The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

5. Rackable Is Wreckable

Rackable Systems (RACK Quote) got racked up this week.

The Milpitas, Calif., maker of computer storage devices warned late Tuesday that fourth-quarter numbers will fall short of Wall Street's expectations. Intense competition led to profit-pinching price cuts, and sales of RapidScale storage appliances -- billed in November as "surpassing competing technologies" -- missed targets.

"Although it took us longer than expected to roll out our new RapidScale line of products," CEO Tom Barton said, "early customer feedback has been positive and we remain enthusiastic about the long-term opportunities for this business."

Others were less enthusiastic. Shares plunged 34% Wednesday as investors reassessed Rackable's prospects in light of its second earnings disappointment in as many quarters.

The slowdown comes just three months after Rackable grabbed a coveted spot on a consulting group's list of North America's fastest-growing companies.

"Deloitte's Silicon Valley Technology Fast 50 companies," a Rackable press release said in October, "have shown the strength, vision and tenacity to succeed in today's very competitive technology environment."

Well, maybe 49 of them have.

Dumb-o-Meter score: 75. "Unlike other file system architectures, RapidScale is unencumbered by metadata bottlenecks," Rackable explained cryptically in November.