Sooner or later, our turn on the hot seat was going to come. And now it has, with Facebook shares currently in the throes of a headless chicken dance following the release of Q4 earnings after Wednesday’s close.  I’ve reproduced a five-minute chart that shows how Wall Street’s best and brightest are taking the news. Not well, for sure, since, after some extremely wild swings, the stock is down about 5% on word of 40% revenue growth. Profits were down 79% as well, but this reportedly was due mainly to the cost of some new initiatives and charges related to employee stock.

The numbers supposedly were in line with expectations, but as always, it’s who is doing the expecting that matters, not the numbers per se. Perhaps cooler heads will prevail on Thursday, but there’s little point trying to second guess these whackos on a day when they’ve swung the stock 13% in mere minutes.  For our part, we continue to  hold a bull spread that is guaranteed to make money  — two dozen March 30-33 verticals legged on in November for a 12.5-cent credit.  We’ll bank as much as $7500 if Facebook is trading above $33 come March 15, but no loss is possible since we own the position for a net credit of $300.  Click here to sample Rick’s Picks free for a week.