Bloggers v. Pros on Apple: Another $2 billion revenue gap
With Q2 earnings due next week, the two groups of analysts are once again miles apart
The amateur analysts who follow Apple can afford to be more bullish than the professionals who do it for banks and brokerage houses. After all, unlike the sell-side analysts who are telling investors to buy the stock, they don’t have clients who will be angry if the company doesn’t exceed expectations.
But with Apple set to report its fiscal second-quarter earnings next Wednesday, the gap between bloggers and pros that we remarked on last quarter is even more stark this time around, as the EPS chart above, courtesy of Alexis Cabot, makes clear.
Among the 58 analysts we polled in advance of Wednesday’s Q2 2011 earnings call — 14 amateurs and 34 professionals — the difference in their average revenue estimates, $25.25 billion and $23.26 billion, respectively, was $1.98 billion (8.53%), slightly smaller than last quarter. But in percentage terms, the gap between their EPS estimates — $0.95 — was even larger: a whopping 17.74%.
Ironically, it was a pro — Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu — who turned in the most bullish revenue estimate, $26.741 billion. CORRECTION: The most bullish estimate came, as usual, from an amateur: Traderhood’s Nicolae Mihalache at $26.2 billion.
The most bearish estimate, $21.989 billion, comes from Goldman Sach’s Bill Shope.
Below: The numbers we’ve gathered so far, along with each analyst’s rank in last quarter’s earnings smackdown. We’ll find out who was closest to the mark after the closing bell on April 20.
For a deeper dive into the gap that separates the pros from the amateurs, see Daniel Tello’s fascinating Which analysts are the biggest sandbaggers.
| Analyst, affiliation | Revenue (billions) | EPS | Date of est. | Q1 rank |
| Nicolae Mihalache, Traderhood | 26.20 | 6.67 | 3/27/11 | 4 |
| Luke Kittell, Apple Finance Board | 25.73 | 6.40 | 3/29/11 | NA |
| Patrick Smellie, Apple Finance Board | 25.72 | 6.35 | 3/25/11 | 1 |
| Jeff Fidacaro, Susquehanna | 25.68 | 5.72 | 3/25/11 | 31 |
| Chas McKenna, Apple Finance Board | 25.64 | 6.45 | 3/27/11 | NA |
| Dennis Hildebrand, Apple’s Gold | 25.51 | 6.21 | 3/26/11 | 8 |
| Daniel Tello, Deagol’s AAPL Model | 25.26 | 6.32 | 3/21/11 | 6 |
| Robert Paul Leitao, Posts At Eventide | 25.26 | 6.30 | 3/30/11 | 7 |
| Adam Thompson, Apple Finance Board | 25.18 | 6.20 | 3/22/11 | NA |
| Jeff Fosberg, Apple Finance Board | 25.00 | 6.34 | 3/27/11 | 9 |
| Horace Dediu, Asymco | 25.00 | 6.21 | 3/27/11 | 11 |
| Alexis Cabot, Apple Finance Board | 25.00 | 6.26 | 3/30/11 | 3 |
| Turley Muller, Financial Alchemist | 24.79 | 6.38 | 3/23/11 | 2 |
| Andy Zaky, Bullish Cross | 24.73 | 6.20 | 3/31/11 | 5 |
| Robert Cihra, Caris | 24.52 | 5.76 | 3/25/11 | NA |
| Matthew Hoffman, Cowen & Co. | 24.51 | 5.43 | 4/13/11 | 23 |
| Mark Beauch, Apple Finance Board | 24.42 | 5.87 | 3/29/11 | 21 |
| Mike Abramsky, RBC Capital | 24.01 | 5.75 | 4/12/11 | 14 |
| Tavis McCourt, Morgan Keegan | 23.99 | 5.72 | 3/25/11 | 35 |
| Mark Moskowitz, J.P. Morgan | 23.83 | 5.21 | 3/25/11 | 15 |
| Toni Sacconaghi, Bernstein Research | 23.80 | 5.75 | 3/2/11 | 30 |
| Hendi Susanto, Gabelli & Co. | 23.54 | 5.10 | 3/25/11 | 17 |
| Peter Misek, Jeffries | 23.50 | 5.44 | 4/13/11 | NA |
| William Power, Baird | 23.43 | 5.38 | 4/13/11 | 34 |
| Charlie Wolf, Needham | 23.41 | 5.11 | 3/29/11 | 41 |
| Shannon Cross, Cross Securities | 23.32 | 5.46 | 4/12/11 | NA |
| Maynard Um, UBS | 23.28 | 5.44 | 3/28/11 | 37 |
| Shaw Wu, Sterne Agee | 23.28 | 5.42 | 3/30/11 | 27 |
| Brian Marshall, Gleacher & Co. | 23.19 | 5.55 | 3/3/11 | 19 |
| Andy Hargreaves, Pacific Crest | 23.14 | 5.61 | 3/30/11 | NA |
| Scott Craig, Merrill Lynch | 23.14 | 5.63 | 3/21/11 | 16 |
| Steven Fox, CLSA | 23.00 | 5.44 | 3/29/11 | NA |
| T. Michael Walkley, Canaccord Genuity | 23.00 | 5.22 | 3/28/11 | 29 |
| Rajesh Ghai, Think Equity | 22.94 | 5.33 | 3/25/11 | 39 |
| Yair Reiner, Oppenheimer | 22.89 | 5.18 | 3/2/11 | 10 |
| Chris Whitmore, Deutsche Bank | 22.85 | 5.23 | 4/5/11 | 13 |
| Scott Sutherland, Wedbush | 22.82 | 5.05 | 3/3/11 | 24 |
| Brian White, Ticonderoga | 22.75 | 5.13 | 3/28/11 | 38 |
| Ben Reitzes, Barclays Capital | 22.70 | 5.10 | 4/13/11 | 25 |
| Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray | 22.68 | 5.11 | 3/25/11 | 33 |
| Daniel Ernst, Hudson Square | 22.65 | 4.95 | 1/19/11 | 28 |
| Kathryn Huberty, Morgan Stanley | 22.56 | 5.34 | 3/25/11 | 36 |
| Ralph Schackart, William Blair | 22.55 | 5.03 | 1/19/11 | NA |
| William Fearnley, Janney Capital | 22.22 | 4.99 | 1/19/11 | 26 |
| Keith Bachman, BMO Capital | 22.18 | 5.02 | 3/18/11 | 20 |
| Richard Gardner, Citigroup | 22.08 | 5.15 | 3/25/11 | 18 |
| Alex Gauna, JMP Securities | 22.00 | 5.10 | 3/16/11 | NA |
| Bill Shope, Goldman Sachs | 21.99 | 4.99 | 3/25/11 | 12 |
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Also on Fortune.com:
- Millennial Media: iOS gained on Android in March
- The triumph of ‘good enough’ computing
- Where the CDMA iPhone goes next
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
