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Comment by elithrar | Hacker News Reader

> As impressive as this is, it is below analyst consensus, and the stock is down 5% afterhours :-(

This happens every time. Apple exceeds their own guidance; grows at a rate faster than nearly anyone else in the Fortune 500, and yet still fall short of the (insane) analyst guesses (predictions would be unsuitable).

I believe Horace Dediu did an article some time ago on amateur vs professional analysts and their track records against Apple's earnings calls. I can't seem to find the link but the degree at which some were off (with regularity) would be concerning if I were paying them for the advice.

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I remember that as well -- bloggers got it right, analysts got it wrong. This morning I read "somewhere on the internet" that bloggers were predicting ~$10 while analysts where predicting ~$12. If I didn't just imagine that, this would remarkable in that even the bloggers overestimated.

Here's the data for this year - it looks like it was Philip Elmer-DeWitt who may have compiled the data.

Interestingly, the independent analysts (oft. "bloggers") were much further off base as an aggregate than the institutional analysts: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/24/all-eyes-on-apples-ea...

This reminds me of "The Wisdom of Crowds"[1]. Could it be a case of the masses collectively being more intelligent than the so called experts?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

The experts are generally over-conservative for a reason. The tldr reason is that they get fired for losing people's money so absolute accuracy (where misses are 50% high and 50% low) is not their incentive.

Check out: http://www.estimize.com/

Wisdom of Crowds for earnings calls.

"fall short of the analyst guesses" every time? Not every time.

Jan 2011: "Apple turned in results that easily surpassed Street expectations" http://www.cnbc.com/id/41137612/Apple_Profit_Revenue_Outstri...

April 2012: "Apple posted quarterly results that blew past expectations" http://www.cnbc.com/id/47161478/Apple_Earnings_Surprise_Why_...

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