What job other than a Wall Street Analyst can you be wrong so often and still command such respect? Meteorologist?
Everyday new data is released to the market that can dramatically affect the market action for that day or even several days. This data alone would be less of an impact if where not for the analysts’ estimates that are either met, beaten or missed.
The market interoperates a miss as things are worse than expected. When the data beats the analysts numbers the market views things better than once thought. Lastly when the number is right on, we are status quo.
My question is how we can take the “educated guess” from a small group of people and determine whether the data released is positive, negative or status quo. Most analysts work for the investment community directly, so are their estimates driven by an agenda. These “educated guesses” somehow have become benchmarks. Lately these guesses have moved markets dramatically in short periods of time to the upside and downside.
Are these estimates for professional traders or investors? Should brokerage firms be able to release estimates, since they can have such an impact on the short term markets? Why do the markets seem to trade a step ahead of the news, is it because they set the benchmarks?
