While a short-term stock price surge is nice, what Research In Motion Ltd. investors should really be cheering this week is the company’s return to realism.

The BlackBerry maker reported its fiscal second-quarter results on Thursday, posting a 31-per-cent year-over-year drop in revenue and a $235-million (U.S.) loss in the quarter. For most tech companies, such numbers would not prompt investor approval. But so low are the expectations for RIM, whose stock price has dropped from about $107 to about $7 in the past four years, that its shareholders rewarded the company for not having done even worse. After hours on Thursday, RIM shares surged as much as 20 per cent, and held on to a decent chunk of that gain the next day.