“In our ranking of the best and worst Apple (AAPL) analysts for Q4 2010, which lists them based on how accurately they predicted revenue and earnings per share, the top three spots — and nine of the top 15 — were taken by bloggers,” P.E.D. reports. “In the more comprehensive Deagol Ranking (see below), which weighs analysts’ performances in all the categories we polled, the pros took the first seven spots.”
P.E.D. reports, “Hats off to three bloggers — Financial Alchemist’s Turley Muller, Apple Finance Board’s Alexis Cabot and Deagol’s AAPL Model Daniel Tello — who topped our list, with a tip of the hat to Bullish Cross’ Andy Zaky, who predicted Apple’s EPS to within a penny. Everybody underestimated those blow-out iPhone sales, but special mention goes to RBC’s Mike Abramsky, who underestimated them less than anybody. Bernstein’s Toni Saccanaghi took the honors for Mac unit sales. Canaccord Genuity’s Mike Walkley nailed the iPod number.”
Check out the full analyst smackdown in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We love some of the analysts’ concern over margins during yesterday’s conference call – even though Apple clearly and repeatedly told them that margins would decline during the previous conference call. In one ear and – whoosh! – right out the other.
I love the fact that all talk about a Verizon iPhone has disappeared, as it should, it ain’t going to happen until July 2012 (at the earliest).
Wrong Gregg
Wrong Gregg
Wow, so much ignorance about the market and shorting is on display in the comments of this thread!
Let’s see:
Allowing traders to make money on the way down (shorting) helps reduce the likelihood of a stock being inflated up, and up, and up until it crashes by 50% or more! It encourages medium-term investors to focus on the underlying fudamentals, rather than betting that market psychology of a rising stock will continue long enough for them to get in and get out. It obviously doesn’t prevent a strong stock like Apple from enjoying a strong run over several months/years (like it has!). Instead, every decline encourages investors to reconsider: is this stock still reflecting the company’s true value, or has it been over-inflated because everyone is trying to get in on the growth trajectory? A growth trajectory that looks like “two steps forward, one step back” every week is a good price to pay to reduce the likelihood of a trajectory that look like “a hundred steps forward, fifty steps back.” Think about it, at the individual stock level, it’s very rare to see things like that! Entire markets will still create bubbles based on growth psychology (e.g., the 1999-2000 bubble), but that’s much harder to prevent.
The pullback last night was a healthy, small (percentage-wise) reassessment after a very substantial run-up the last couple of months, some of which was based on incorrect guesses about iPad growth and margin. (There was also a little profit-taking, which is also normal–this isn’t play money after all.) Over the next few weeks investors will reassess, from this much higher platform, whether Apple stock should continue to go back up to even greater numbers. I’m betting that Apple is still under-valued and buying more of it.
P.S. Of COURSE shorting is another way to make money, why else would anyone bother to do it! That “point” is just plain silly.
Wow, so much ignorance about the market and shorting is on display in the comments of this thread!
Let’s see:
Allowing traders to make money on the way down (shorting) helps reduce the likelihood of a stock being inflated up, and up, and up until it crashes by 50% or more! It encourages medium-term investors to focus on the underlying fudamentals, rather than betting that market psychology of a rising stock will continue long enough for them to get in and get out. It obviously doesn’t prevent a strong stock like Apple from enjoying a strong run over several months/years (like it has!). Instead, every decline encourages investors to reconsider: is this stock still reflecting the company’s true value, or has it been over-inflated because everyone is trying to get in on the growth trajectory? A growth trajectory that looks like “two steps forward, one step back” every week is a good price to pay to reduce the likelihood of a trajectory that look like “a hundred steps forward, fifty steps back.” Think about it, at the individual stock level, it’s very rare to see things like that! Entire markets will still create bubbles based on growth psychology (e.g., the 1999-2000 bubble), but that’s much harder to prevent.
The pullback last night was a healthy, small (percentage-wise) reassessment after a very substantial run-up the last couple of months, some of which was based on incorrect guesses about iPad growth and margin. (There was also a little profit-taking, which is also normal–this isn’t play money after all.) Over the next few weeks investors will reassess, from this much higher platform, whether Apple stock should continue to go back up to even greater numbers. I’m betting that Apple is still under-valued and buying more of it.
P.S. Of COURSE shorting is another way to make money, why else would anyone bother to do it! That “point” is just plain silly.
If you look at their original iPad predictions, they were low. Many analysts ramped up their predictions in the first couple of weeks of October. It is no wonder that some of them finally overshot a number here or there. And how about that incredible iPhone sales number? It seems reasonable to assume that the decrease in iPod sales is partially due to iPhone sales and partially due to the iPod refresh cycle for the holiday quarter. Mac sales were very strong, too.
I don’t know what to think about the market reaction. I do agree that there is far too much price manipulation occurring in the U.S. stock market. But it is not clear to me that the “little guy” will ever have anywhere close to a level playing field in comparison to the corporate traders that are directly plugged into the market innards with programmed trading and have instant access to a wide range of data. What is “insider trading” when profits can be made on spreads that vary in milliseconds?
If you look at their original iPad predictions, they were low. Many analysts ramped up their predictions in the first couple of weeks of October. It is no wonder that some of them finally overshot a number here or there. And how about that incredible iPhone sales number? It seems reasonable to assume that the decrease in iPod sales is partially due to iPhone sales and partially due to the iPod refresh cycle for the holiday quarter. Mac sales were very strong, too.
I don’t know what to think about the market reaction. I do agree that there is far too much price manipulation occurring in the U.S. stock market. But it is not clear to me that the “little guy” will ever have anywhere close to a level playing field in comparison to the corporate traders that are directly plugged into the market innards with programmed trading and have instant access to a wide range of data. What is “insider trading” when profits can be made on spreads that vary in milliseconds?
How about a “One Buy, One Sell per day in any one stock” rule?
How about a “One Buy, One Sell per day in any one stock” rule?
@ Les S
You sure about your first point? I thought the shortage
of “flash and screen capacity” was because we can’t
make the iPads and iPhone4s fast enough and we
need all the components we can get our hands on.
Is Apple buying all the excess beyond their needs
to create a shortage for others?
@ Les S
You sure about your first point? I thought the shortage
of “flash and screen capacity” was because we can’t
make the iPads and iPhone4s fast enough and we
need all the components we can get our hands on.
Is Apple buying all the excess beyond their needs
to create a shortage for others?