Tales of Thursday

Philip Elmer-DeWitt takes a look at Apple analyst Charlie Wolf (Needham).

Elmer-DeWitt noted Wolf's miscalculation in his Amateurs vs. Professionals list after Apple's Q1 earnings: Wolf "underestimated Apple's revenues by $3.73 billion and its iPad sales by more than 2 million units."

Today, Wolf explained that in-store sales are "fluctuating wildly." It's not easy being an analyst these days, with reports that as many as 15,000 of them have been laid off in the past year or so. Meanwhile obsessed scribes on the interweb nail the numbers far, far better than the pros. Wolf and his fellow pros catch a lot of flak and they're held accountable to the highest degree on the net, but they can relax to an extent. After all, they've got medical coverage and nice desks, and most Appleholics realize that these tie-and-coat types have dozens, even hundreds of other stocks to track.

I read the analysts. I trust the bloggers.