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Here are the analyst numbers in a bit more detail: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ae?s=GOOG+Analyst+Estimates http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ae?s=GOOG+Analyst+Estimates
by smackfu 14y ago
Here are the analyst numbers in a bit more detail: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ae?s=GOOG+Analyst+Estimates http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ae?s=GOOG+Analyst+Estimates
38 separate analysts, high estimate was $13, low estimate was $9.92. Average was $10.65, actual numbers were $9.03, so below even the most pessimistic analyst. That usually means the publicly available info just wasn't accurate, that something happened privately that only Google knew about.
Usually companies avoid this kind of thing by giving some mid-quarter update so that they can mitigate some of the damage.
Google actually provides no EPS guidance at all though, which also caused problems with a big miss in January 2012. Analysts like to have something to work off of.
- rm999 14y agoAnalyst earning forecasts are known to be optimistically biased. Here's a paper discussing this: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=971027 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=971027
- smackfu 14y agoWhich should theoretically let you "put your money where your mouth is", since if analysts are systematically wrong, and the prices move in response to analysts...
- jamesaguilar 14y agoI think you'd have to test the latter assumption too before you go betting against them.
- rm999 14y agoAlthough I think most serious investors either ignore analysts or know to adjust for their biases. Some of the real victims are lazy academics, as the paper discusses.
- jivatmanx 14y agoI wonder if this is a variation of the analyst theme of never, ever give a stock a sell rating?