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To: JZGalt who wrote (16182)	3/23/1998 4:19:00 PM
From: TCGNJ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

JZ, I think many of the predictions and guesses made on these threads are, in fact, more to the mark than those of the professional analysts. TCG

To: JZGalt who wrote (16182)	3/23/1998 4:24:00 PM
From: RGinPG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

I hadn't thought about that "revisions against the trend" concept. It makes sense.

To: JZGalt who wrote (16182)	3/23/1998 4:37:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

JZ, some thoughts on your thoughts. First, most "analysts" aren't analysts at all, but conduits of information from the company to the street or from the brokerages to the investors. In the former case they get their "estimates" directly from the companies they "analyze". When they do this it's called "guidance", and companies do this because investors like positive surprises. Now you can call me cynical, but the information from the "analyst" as medium to the investor is always the same. Sell sector x and buy sector y and change your cash position to z. They do this for two reason. First, they are sometimes speculating in x and y in the opposite direction of their "advice", and second the more you churn the greater the brokerage commissions they make. Your second thought about the quality of the earnings estimate was echoed by Malkiel, when he noted that naive extrapolation of past earnings is frequently as good as "analysts'" projections. So I guess that the primary requisite for an "analyst" is to be a parrot, faithfully repeating whatever he is told. Regards, Paul