The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

5. Lose-Lose Scenario

IMS Health (RX Quote) is looking sickly.

Shares in the Norwalk, Conn., healthcare information company plunged 21% Thursday after IMS posted a weak third quarter and predicted a growth slowdown ahead. The company said changes in its customers -- led by the big pharmaceutical companies -- have led to longer sales cycles on client contracts.

"These agreements are structured as a 'win-win' scenario," CEO David Carlucci said on an earnings call Wednesday afternoon. "Unfortunately, the market environment has not improved our ability to close these sell-through opportunities as quickly as we had expected."

That doesn't sound like much of a win-win -- particularly for IMS investors, who saw their shares drop to a three-year low the day after the announcement. Equally mystifying was Carlucci's supposedly uplifting take on the company' future.

"Our clients' challenges present considerable opportunities for us," he said in Wednesday's press release. "We're focused on these opportunities, and remain well-positioned to help drive their continued success."

Driving IMS' own success is obviously another challenge altogether.

Dumb-o-Meter score: 75. "We were probably overly optimistic that we could turn this situation faster, and that the clients would respond in a more aggressive fashion to the changing environment," Carlucci said on the call.