RE: analysts?Hi there wilf9. I got a good chuckle out of your post. The way I see it is this. What is an analyst and what makes them so special? First an analyst is nothing more than another human being, and as such are prone to make the same mistakes you and I are capable of making on a day to day basis. The information they have available to them to help them determine the target prices on any specific stock are all the same numbers we have available if we truly desire to search them out. So does this make them smarter than us in that they can put a target price on a stock and have reasonable expectations this will in turn become a reality? In my opinion absolutely not. I think that in many instances they are basically speculating the same as we do when we do our due diligence. The bottom line is, this is investing, and the first rule of investing is there is ALWAYS risk. I would even venture to go as far as to say some analysts often give completely wrong advice because they follow the crowd. We notice this many times when some companies come to an area where some significant decisions need to be made and the analysts will start to downgrade a particular stock, when in fact only months later after the management of this particular company has made what they feel to be the correct decision, and it is proven by the subsequent growth of the company. The effect of this type of advice can be extremely detrimental to an investors portfolio not to mention the investors sanity. This is of course a view from the practical and realistic side of things. Unfortunately, the market has bestowed such honor on these analysts that even though they can often urge you to buy at the highs and sell at the lows they are capable of having huge impacts on these stocks. I have come to understand they definitely make a lot of money to advise people on how to invest so that to me states that I probably might be better prepared to make decisions on my investments as it is my money and who better to have a vested interest in my money than me. Like I said though, one does need to pay attention what these analysts are saying as they have the ability to move market sentiment, which they have taken much schooling, to be awarded this honor.
GLTA longs