For months and months NASDAQ’s “Analysts Recommendations” (a group of 16-18 analyst firms that fluctuates as coverage is added and dropped at various times) for Apple Computer (AAPL) looked like this:
Strong Buy – 0
Buy – 1
Hold – 15
Underperform – 0
Sell – 1
Then a week before Jobs’ January 2004 Macworld keynote, we reported that we had finally noticed movement on the analyst recommendations:
Strong Buy – 1
Buy – 1
Hold – 14
Underperform – 0
Sell – 1
On January 14th, in advance of Apple’s earning announcement, we reported another marked shift in the analyst recommendations for AAPL. That chart looked like this:
Strong Buy – 2
Buy – 2
Hold – 12
Underperform – 0
Sell – 1
Then on January 21, 2004, the chart reflected 18 analyst firm recommendations:
Strong Buy – 2
Buy – 3
Hold – 12
Underperform – 0
Sell – 1
Then, on March 24th, the chart has changed again:
Strong Buy – 3
Buy – 3
Hold – 9
Underperform – 0
Sell – 1
We checked the chart on June 2nd and found that it had changed again:
Strong Buy – 3
Buy – 3
Hold – 11
Underperform – 0
Sell – 0
Finally. ‘Bye ‘bye lone “Sell” recommendation. Better late than never!
Today, the chart looks like this:
Strong Buy – 3
Buy – 5
Hold – 10
Underperform – 0
Sell – 0
View the latest chart here.
I never trust these morons
well said!
Secret: New iMac line is going to very attractive price wise and generate a ton of sales. Steve is hell bent on getting more market share and rising the stock.
It’s going to be watercooled and the processor/pump is going to be in one piece, so it’s easily replaced or fixed, just like the G5.
Water cooled and attractive price are mutually exclusive. It’ll be dry.
Are these the morons who saw Xserve not ship ti 4 months later and then at a snails pace? are these morons ignoring the fact that Apple doesnt have a Imac or Emac to ship for 2- 3 months? yeah Apple is doing a great job getting marketshare what it down to now 1.7% as of last qtr. Give me a break this company and its stock are way overpriced. they missed the consumer market by almost 100% guy who wrote this is a fucking idiot, sort of like the guy running Apple.
Who are you calling a moron, “morons is right”? Apple can see all of the (recently updated) eMacs that people want. Only iMac production has been halted in favor of an upcoming iMac G5 revision. Apple intelligently decided to avoid creating a backlog of iMac G4 inventory over the next month or so, knowing that everyone who was in the market would wait for the iMac G5. Even so, there are still iMacs available from existing inventory.
The current situation is not ideal. I certainly would prefer that Apple would ship new products in volume on the day of release. But better a delayed Apple product than a Dull or M$ product IMO.
Amazing. My view of the analysts is really depreciating. When the stock was 12, none of the sob’s said “buy” now it is 34, tripled and they say great idea, like it is going to keep going. Fat chance. Sure, with a PE raitio about 60. If anything, now is the time I’d be taking a bit of profit had I bought 18 mos ago. . . Hindsite.For Apple to keep up this run, they will have to drop prices on the iPod in the face of competition, and churn out more volume, AND come out with a killer offering in the new iMac price & performance wise, to make real gains in the OS market share. OR get some kind of government contract for a few hundred thousand units.
The morons are the writers of this story. This isn’t news and who cares.
The real morons are the people who come to sites like this for no reason other than to troll.
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come on people didn’t you learn anything from enron these guys serve their own interest, trust you money to no one but you own instincts, apple has great products, starting to dominate video market, modern os that is ahead of everyone else, great chip speed and improving not to mention the music thing. duh
Every company within a capitalist society exists to serve its own interest.
But yeah, the analyst are pretty much just guessing probably the majority of the time.
*Shrug*
The great thing is that by serving its OWN interest well (within our laws), a capitalist company also serves the interests of average consumers. Apple is a perfect example.
Funny, that is just too complicated for some folks…
(Even M$ is serving a large group of very confused customers, but it will eventually improve or fail.)