Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of genetics analysis specialist Affymetrix (Nasdaq: AFFX) got clobbered by investors today, losing as much as 20% in intraday trading on heavy volume.

So what: When a company says that it's "clearly disappointed" with its revenue for a quarter, you can be assured that its investors will be none too happy. For the second quarter, Affymetrix said that it will likely report between $64 million and $65 million in revenue. Wall Street analysts had been expecting a hair over $74 million. This was a preliminary announcement, so it didn't give investors a full picture of the quarter's financials, but it's a pretty safe assumption that the bottom line will also be worse than anticipated.

Now what: For those interested in looking on the bright side, the company's CFO emphasized the fact that the company produced approximately $10 million in positive cash flow, and will end the quarter with $155 million in net cash. Looking ahead though, the question that investors will likely want answered when the company holds its quarterly conference call is whether academic institutions -- which management blamed for the revenue miss -- are expected to open their wallets again anytime soon.

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