Amateur analysts who follow Apple (AAPL), is generally much more optimistic than the professionals who do it for banks and brokerages. In the end, in contrast to the sell-side analysts who are telling investors to buy stocks, they have customers who are angry and disappointed if the company does not exceed expectations.
But with Apple set to report fiscal first-quarter earnings Tuesday, the gap between bloggers and pros is as wide as we remember.
Among the 44 analysts surveyed, we are up to 1 quarter 2011 earnings call Tuesday - 10 amateurs and 34 professionals - a difference in their earnings consensus $ 26.4 billion and $ 24.31 billion, respectively, were nearly 2.1 billion U.S. dollars ( 8,6%). In percentage terms, the gap between their estimates EPS - about $ 1 - was even greater: a whopping 18%.
Prize for the most bullish score goes to Dennis Hildebrand Gold Apple, amateur with mixed results to track who predicted earnings of $ 6.61 on revenues of $ 27.8 billion.
The most conservative estimates comes, ironically, from Charlie Wolf Needham's, Apple has long bull. Wolf, who is calling for earnings of $ 4.93 on revenues of $ 23.01 billion, tend to come in on the low side. He explained in a private e-mail that he rarely change the number, he files immediately after each quarterly earnings report, and it bases its calculations on the (usually conservative) Apple gross leadership edge.
Below: income, EPS and gross margin rates, we have collected so far (fans in blue, the pros in peach). rating Deagol in the sixth column is a measure of the accuracy of each analyst over the past two or three quarters, with 1 high and 40 low.
