Apple beats Wall Street predictions with record-breaking iPhone sales revenue

melgross said:
I keep telling people to not listen to the negative analysts. Three predicted disappointing iPhone sales this quarter, while two reported very good iPhone sales.

This is like any other judgment from a panel, you toss the high and low scores out and average out the rest. This isn't specific to financial analysts, they do this during figure skating at the Olympics, surfing contests, etc.

No one analyst is always right all the time so it's best to take the middle chunk. It's okay to lean one direction or another if you see a particularly reliable analyst on one side of the fence.

For a while, amateur analysts (bloggers) were beating the pros on a regular basis.

Many analysts are rated by Starmine which tracks their accuracy over time. Any longtime follower of Apple's business will remember some horrifically inaccurate analysts that many Apple media sites LOVED to quote (*cough* Munster *cough*). Some were so consistently wrong that it was easier to best on the opposite of their take. Some were longtime bears who always came up short (Katy Huberty at Morgan Stanley was like this for years before she finally came around and saw the light).

Since the start of the pandemic Apple stopped providing their own guidance so it has forced analysts to actually use their brains instead of just picking up the Magic 8-Ball.

The era of Apple routinely smashing expectations is over. Apple is more of a value stock rather than a growth stock here in 2024. It's not 2009 anymore.

As I've said for a very long time, AppleInsider (and other tech media sites) really need to track the accuracy of the analysts they quote. Market researchers like CIPR are mostly pulling their numbers out of a body orifice (I'll give you three guesses but you'll only need one).