Citigroup
Video: Jim Cramer rips into Citi's hot-cold Apple analysis
December 19, 2012: 6:52 AM ETThe pot may be calling the kettle black, but in this case it's richly deserved
Cramer on Citi. Click to view.
FORTUNE -- I'd been wondering what to say about Citigroup's (C) coverage of Apple (AAPL), which took a sharp turn for the worse with the departure of its 16-year veteran analyst Richard Gardner last spring.
Not only did Citi miss Apple's run from $560 to $705 -- a six-month stretch when the bank provided no coverage at all -- but then the new team gave clients a 20-day one-two punch: Issuing a Buy at $571 just before the stock fell to $509.79, then downgrading Apple to Neutral just before shares bounced back to $533.90.
As I say, I was wondering whether to comment on this string of spectacularly bad advice when "kylobbyist," a long-time member of Investor Village's AAPL Sanity board (and no fan of CNBC's Jim Cramer) pointed out that the king of hot-and-cold Apple TV commentators tore into Citi's back-to-back reports Tuesday night. "I just spit out a nice glass of cabernet," she posted. "I'm about to gag."
I found the No Huddle Offense clip, and embedded it below. Despite a few slips of the tongue, Cramer did a good job. I have nothing to add, except that Citi may regret the day it let Richard Gardner go.
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Citigroup's on-again off-again coverage of Apple
Having missed the run-up from $560 to $705, it's back with a "buy" at $571
FORTUNE -- Citigroup (C) was getting a lot of press Monday morning for "initiating" coverage of Apple (AAPL) with a buy rating and a $675 price target. Business Insider's Joe Weisenthal called it "one of the big calls of the day."
That's ironic, because when Citi dropped its coverage of Apple six months ago with the departure MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 26, 2012 11:38 AM ET -
Another Apple analyst backs away from iTV's inevitability
Pouring cold water on one of Silicon Valley's hottest rumors
FORTUNE -- Although there is no shortage of iTV speculation -- thanks to rumor sites like Taipei-based DigiTimes -- and plenty of Apple (AAPL) analysts ready to calculate to the penny how much an Apple-branded TV set would add to the company's bottom line, some experts have started to back away from what was once seen as an inevitablity.
In December, Richard Gardner, formerly MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 14, 2012 1:27 PM ETPosted in: Andy Hargreaves, Apple, Barclays, Ben Reitzes, Citigroup, DigiTime, iPad mini, iTV, Pacific Crest, Richard Gardner, Silicon Valley, television -
The Street scrambles to adjust its Apple expectations
Updating price targets to account for a dividend, a buyback and 3 million iPad
Most Apple (AAPL) analysts like to publish their quarterly estimates for the current quarter the day after the company reports its results from the last. And then, unless things change dramatically, they stick with their forward-looking numbers for the next two and a half months.
Sometimes, however, Apple gets so far ahead of their forecasts that adjustments must MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 20, 2012 2:27 PM ETPosted in: Apple, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, iPad, Merrill Lynch, Mobile, Price targets, Tablets, Wells Fargo -
Making solar affordable
Google, Citi, and others are reaping nice returns by funding solar rooftop power projects. Will it last?
By Brian Dumaine, senior-editor-at-large
FORTUNE -- When Bruce Buller looked into installing solar panels on the roof of his ranch house in Diamond Bar, Calif., he suffered severe sticker shock. "We had been thinking about solar for years," says Buller, "but we found the cost -- about $35,000 -- to be prohibitive." He then discovered SunRun, one MORE
Nov 16, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
Hacker hunters: Join the cyber security job boom
With hackers running riot on the Internet, here's how you can get paid to stop them.
By Alex Konrad, contributor
FORTUNE -- Don't let the headlines about New Corp.'s (NWSA) recent phone follies give you the wrong idea about hacking: Cyber crime is only getting more complex and dangerous, but it is creating new jobs for people who want to fight it. Recent high-profile hacks of government sites, Citigroup (C), and Sony MORE
Jul 22, 2011 5:00 AM ETPosted in: AT&T, Boeing, Citigroup, cyber analysts, cyber crime, cyber security, Hackers, Information technology, Microsoft, Sony, Wells Fargo -
Yet another hack, yet another delay in reporting it
Citigroup is the latest to report a security breach, but the hack occurred more than a month ago. It's time for companies to open up about exposures to its systems.
FORTUNE -- Given the number of recent, high-profile network security breaches, it might be tempting to call 2011 the Year of the Hack. The danger is that there's a good chance 2012 might be even worse.
The underlying reason for this is MORE
Dan Mitchell, contributor - Jun 9, 2011 3:57 PM ET -
Explaining Kindle's success: it's very simple(minded)
Jeff Bezos's strategy of giving customers the best e-reader and e-bookstore possible is paying off for Amazon -- not that it's saying by how much.
FORTUNE -- Sales of the Kindle and of e-books are so good, and growing so fast, that they are now becoming a driver of Amazon's overall growth, says Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney.
We can't know for sure how many Kindles Amazon (AMZN) is selling, because the company MORE
Dan Mitchell, contributor - Jun 8, 2011 11:49 AM ET -
Apple analysts: Who did better in Q2, who did worse
Some of the worst were much-improved this quarter. Others have a lot to answer for.
Although they were once again bested by the amateurs in last week's Apple (AAPL) earnings smackdown -- as they have been every quarter since we've been keeping track -- it was not all bad news for the Wall Street analysts who are paid to predict the company's quarterly results.
As the spreadsheet at right shows, most of MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 25, 2011 7:29 AM ET -
How many tablets in 2011?
Sales estimates range from 35 million to 100 million, with the biggest slice going to Apple
In his debut performance in this week's Barron's, where he replaces the venerable Eric Savitz (now at Forbes), Tiernan Ray provides a useful round-up of Wall Street tablet sales estimates for 2011.
Only trouble is, the estimates vary so widely you don't whether to laugh or cry.
On the low end, Citigroup estimates sales of 35 million, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 27, 2010 12:50 PM ET
