Analysts

Video: Grading the Apple analysts on a scale of A to F

Two ways of seeing how well (or badly) the pros and amateurs predict Apple's earnings

We've been trying for several years to find the best way to show how much better the so-called amateur analysts (some of whom have since gone pro) are at estimating Apple's (AAPL) quarterly revenue and earnings than the Wall Street professionals who do it for the big banks and brokerage firms.

Now Asymco's Horace Dediu, who is MORE

Wall Street raises its Apple estimates, but not high enough

Apple's earnings grew 116% in Q1. So why is the Street is looking for 44% in Q2?

After Apple (AAPL) blew past everybody's expectations on Tuesday, reporting sales up more than 73% and earnings up nearly 116%, analysts up and down Wall Street rushed to revise their spreadsheets and issue new notes to clients. We got our hands on 39 of them -- plus a note from one analyst that his MORE

Can Apple still deliver an earnings surprise?

The 18% gap between the Street's estimates and the independents' suggests that it can

Last fall, a Wall Street analyst who shall remain nameless suggested in a note to clients that the days of the big Apple (AAPL) earnings surprises may be over.

He was referring to the string of quarterly reports in which the company beat the Street's estimates by measures so wide they were (or should have been) an embarrassment MORE

The first 5-million Mac quarter?

33 of 46 analysts expect Apple to meet or beat that mark in its quarterly report next week

One of the big computer news stories last quarter was the continued strength of Apple's (AAPL) Mac sales even as the rest of the PC industry was shrinking. (See Mac sales zigged as Windows PC sales sagged in Q4.)

How well did the Mac do? We put the question to our two groups of analysts MORE

iPad sales estimates for Q1 range from 11.7 to 19.5 million

The Street's consensus: 13.5 million. The indies are 10% more bullish

Everybody we've heard from expects Apple (AAPL) to report record iPad sales for the quarter that ended Dec. 31.

And why not? Tablets were a popular gift item this past holiday season. The iPad 2 didn't face much competition -- except perhaps from Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle Fire. And although there were rumors of an iPad 3 coming in March or April, MORE

How many iPhones did Apple sell last quarter?

Pros and amateurs both expect a blow-out. They're just haggling over the percentage

The most important metric  for Apple (AAPL) in the quarter that ended eight days ago -- likely to account for more than half of the company's revenue for fiscal Q1 2012 -- is the number of iPhones it sold from Sep. 25 to Dec. 31.

We've polled nearly 40 Apple analysts -- professionals and independents -- and for once they MORE

Oracle: Warning of another tech slowdown?

The enterprise giant's stumble may not bode well for the technology sector -- and not just enterprise providers, but all big cap tech companies.

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE - Oracle missing its earnings guidance is like Mariano Rivera blowing a save opportunity, or Bob Dylan putting out a disappointing record. It happens, but not very often. And when it does, the only real question is: Why?

The answer matters beyond the world MORE

The problem with LinkedIn's stock price

After a spectacular IPO, LinkedIn's stock has lost nearly half its value. Yet it's still trading at 300 times its 2012 earnings. So why are Wall Street analysts recommending you buy it?

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE -- The fears of another technology-stock bubble that prevailed in the first half of the year have faded away in the second half as a concerns about Europe's financial stability took the speculative wind out MORE

Netflix and Amazon aren't as bad off as it seems

Investors were caught off guard by results at Amazon and Netflix. Truth is, if they'd been paying closer attention, they'd have seen it coming.

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE – This fall's earnings season is starting to look like hunting season for big-name web companies. First, Netflix drops 35% in one day, Tuesday, after heavy subscriber losses and warning investors that it would lose money for a few quarters next year. Then MORE

The analysts on Apple's iBlip: A 'hiccup,' a 'black swan,' a 'breather at altitude'

Most shrug it off as a transitional aberration. Several raised their price targets.

Apple's (AAPL) fourth quarter results were the first since at least 2004 that failed to beat the analysts' consensus. A sampling of what they had to say about that:

Needham's Charlie Wolf:  Not every quarter is a blowout. "The slowdown in iPhone sales in the second half of the September quarter in advance of the launch of iPhone 4S appeared to take MORE