Dark Horse Best Analyst Of The Month
Each month, Bloomberg asks 15 or 16 analysts for their forecasts of the month’s sales data. But how good are they really? Knowing who has a good aim could make you a lot of money at the stock exchange, for instance. This is where TTAC comes in. Each month, we tell you who hit, who missed, and who is not even in the ballpark. Analysts who only give a SAAR and nothing else are being punished in this ranking. Will just a SAAR help you to know whether you should buy Ford or short GM? Thankfully, the number of lazy analysts diminishes each month. And here are this month’s winners:
November Analyst Rankings
RankAnalyst GMFord Chrysler SAARSAAR DiffOEM DiffOverall1Brian Johnson (Barclays)5.5%2.9%14.0%15.31.5%5.6%7.1%2Jessica Caldwell (Edmunds.com)5.5%3.3%13.0%15.03.5%6.2%9.7%3Rod Lache (Deutsche Bank)6.0%2.0%12.0%15.40.9%9.0%9.9%4Joseph Spak (RBC)7.7%3.5%16.0%15.22.2%9.2%11.4%5Chris Ceraso (Credit Suisse)7.0%3.0%17.0%15.12.8%10.0%12.8%6John Sousanis (Ward’s)7.6%3.9%18.0%15.22.2%10.7%12.9%7Emmanuel Rosner (CLSA)9.5%2.7%16.0%15.03.5%11.8%15.3%8Alec Gutierrez (Kelley)7.0%0.5%13.0%14.75.4%10.5%15.9%9Jesse Toprak (TrueCar.com)9.0%1.5%18.0%15.22.2%14.5%16.7%10Peter Nesvold (Jefferies)8.6%2.3%18.0%15.03.5%13.3%16.8%11Patrick Archambault (Goldman)9.9%1.2%16.0%15.03.5%13.7%17.2%12Ryan Brinkman (JPMorgan)NANANA15.03.5%300.0%303.5%13Jeff Schuster (LMC Automotive)NANANA15.03.5%300.0%303.5%14George Magliano (IHS)NANANA14.84.7%300.0%304.7%15Alan Baum (Baum & Associates)NANANA14.75.4%300.0%305.4%Average7.6%2.4%16.0%15.00Actual3.0%6.0%14.0%15.54On average, the 15 analysts polled by Bloomberg were not optimistic enough on the market, were way to exuberant about GM, did not give enough credit to Ford, and called Chrysler alright. Rock star Jesse Toprak had a bad month and licks his wounds in rank 9. Golden Girl Jessica Caldwell came close, but was denied first place by dark horse Brian Johnson of Barclays. In prior months, Johnson was known for rather middling performance. Was is mere luck? We will know next month, when the analyst of the year will get the TTAC ’12, a.k.a. The Top Anlalyst Crown 2012.
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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Bertel, you don't understand how "forecasts" are made. No analyst can make a company estimate on his or her own because a high, and variable, percentage of deliveries are fleet. How can someone on Wall Street guess that Hertz took delivery of 25,000 vehicles in late November instead of early December? (Incidentally, 25,000 is a 0.3 million SAAR.) Accuracy is determined by the timing of the call (Jerry called on Monday; Wendy on Wednesday, when two days' more data was available) and, occasionally, on whether or not the company likes the analyst (George has a buy recommendation; Sally, a sell).
"Will just a SAAR help you to know whether you should buy Ford or short GM?" Sure, if you're a day trader whose attention span is shorter than a Lamborghini Murciélago's quarter-mile run. But something tells me Warren Buffett isn't exactly poring over lists of monthly analyst rankings.