Grade The Analysts: Shape Up, Ladies & Gentlemen!
The year begins with our analysts in utter disarray. Reality destroyed all projections, even the finely honed real-time forecasting models of TrueCar, Edmunds and Kelley Blue Book are left as smoking wrecks. In the end, familiar names won our January Grade The Analyst, but only because others finished much worse.
Overall, the creme-de-la-creme of the Nation’s auto analysts missed the January SAAR (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate) by nearly a million when polled by Bloomberg a day before the actual January sales came in. The eight analysts that submitted projections for the Detroit 3 (the only way to win this game) guessed way too low on Chrysler, were in the ball park (but too optimistic) on Ford, and too pessimistic on GM.
Finally, Jesse Toprak of TrueCar narrowly squeezed by Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds, winner of The Top Analyst Crown 2011 . Kelley Blue Book’s real time model disappointed.
TrueCar had a bit of a rough time lately, they can use some good news.
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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Guy needs new dreams, if his dream car is a Mini-Van.
I am not sure why you lump all of the people who don't list individual OEMs together with those who do and then count the OEM numbers against them. Seems kind of odd. Also, does anyone rank how they think all of the major OEMs do in the US on a monthly basis? Would be interesting to see that more than just the D2.5.