Is it possible to predict the quarterly earnings for a business, or a giant multi-billion dollar conglomerate accurately down to a single/narrow cent-per-share figure? A large number of investment analysts out there sure think so! After all, who wants to be the sucker who can only give you a broad earnings range, when “I” can give you the exact figure, so “I” must be better. So pay “me”, and hire “me”! And may god strike it down if that company misses “my” estimate by even one cent! It’s not “my” estimation error, it’s their fault! (Returning back to normal) I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me just now!
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But can you hear the analysts tooting their own horns as they predict earnings? And when did companies think it was a good idea to help these overpaid statisticans along with corporate guidances? Is it a good idea? I’d love to hear from you, but I’ll first share my perpsective!
On Monday, I wrote about using Google Trends as a resource for investing ideas. I took a look at three restaurant businesses which, while they were on my mind at the time, probably weren’t the best candidates for this kind of research.
We’ve had discussions here about different ways to use the huge amount of data freely available on the web to make better informed investing decisions. Let’s take a look at some graphs courtesy of Google Trends and see if they can inform us about which restaurant stock to purchase.
