Grade The Analysts: Caldwell Carries Month And Year

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: January 5th, 2012

grade the analysts caldwell carries month and year

Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds again is the clear winner of the December round of Grade The Analysts. She won by hitting the official SAAR (13.65) close enough. She really won by making the highest precision forecast for the Detroit Three. Caldwell also is the undisputed winner of four months of Grade The Analyst, winning her the coveted “TTAC 11” (a.k.a. “The Top Analyst Crown 2011”).

RankAnalyst GMFord Chrys SAARSAAR DiffOEM DiffOverall1Jessica Caldwell (Edmunds.com)5.1%7.8%37.0%13.401.83%2.30%4.13%2Peter Nesvold (Jefferies)5.5%8.3%35.0%13.401.83%4.20%6.03%3Jesse Toprak (TrueCar.com)4.2%6.8%34.0%13.501.10%7.00%8.10%4Rod Lache (Deutsche Bank)4.5%7.0%33.0%13.302.56%7.50%10.06%5Brian Johnson (Barclays Capital)2.4%6.4%34.0%13.501.10%9.20%10.30%6Chris Ceraso (Credit Suisse)6.2%7.9%33.0%13.203.30%7.30%10.60%7Patrick Archambault (Goldman Sachs)1.0%9.0%31.0%13.401.83%11.00%12.83%8Joseph Spak (RBC)6.0%8.0%30.0%13.203.30%10.00%13.30%9Himanshu Patel (JPMorgan)NANA NA13.501.10%300.00%301.10%10Itay Michaeli (Citigroup)NANA NA13.501.10%300.00%301.10%11Adam Jonas (Morgan Stanley) NANA NA13.501.10%300.00%301.10%12Alan Baum (Baum & Associates) NANA NA13.501.10%300.00%301.10%13Jeff Schuster (LMC Automotive)NANA NA13.401.83%300.00%301.83%14George Magliano (IHS Automotive) NANA NA13.302.56%300.00%302.56%Average4.4%7.7%33.0%13.40Actual5.0%10.0%37.0%13.65

Looking back over four months of Grade The Analysts, Caldwell took fist place three out of four times. Having access to real-time data apparently is not everything. Jesse Toprak of Truecar, who also has access to real time data, came in third three out of four times, and once took 5th. Second place was occupied by a changing cast of bankers & brokers.

We had already given up on Bloomberg’s panel, which usually peers in its crystal ball BEFORE the year comes to an end. Finally, in the wee hours of Jan 4, the day the official results were scheduled to come in, Bloomberg caught up with its panel. Without it, there would have been nothing to grade.

The grading of the analysts was not degraded by both Daimler and BMW withholding December numbers. Autodata, which calculates the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate, chose to ignore the dilly-dallying Deutsche and came out with a 13.65 million SAAR yesterday afternoon.

#BertelSchmitt #December2011 #GradeTheAnalysts

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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2 of 21 comments

Niky on Jan 06, 2012

This simply further cements my opinion that Edmunds is still the best major online automotive magazine (read: non-blog) out there... at least from a consumer point of view. Thankfully, they even cater to gearheads, via Inside Line.

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BklynPete on Jan 10, 2012

Even if the fetching Ms. Caldwell weren't married, I'm sure her Ivy-educated reaction to Baruth is that he's a bit of a showoff, probably living off daddy's money, undoubtedly the type who boasts and brags to the boys, and is perhaps compensating for feelings of inade.....well, you get the idea. I'm really not trying to troll here; I think Jack's an awesome writer. Maybe it's 5 years of being married to a feminist, but I just hate it when he objectifies women. If Jack's girlfriend hasn't done it already, he deserves to be put in his place.

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